Spam hitting small companies exploded in 2006

The amount of spam clogging up email servers has exploded, according to the findings in a new survey.

The study of 400 SME's found that in January 2006 only 64 per cent of emails sent to companies were identified as spam. This figure shot up to 85 per cent in last December with the trend set to continue upwards.

The survey also found that number of compromised computers within corporate infrastructures over the twelve month period also increased from 15 per cent in January 2006 to almost 40 per cent in December 2006.

Although spam sent from these computers that form part of a botnet are normally stopped by email filters at the gateway, they still waste part of a organisation's processing power in dealing with the problem, according to IT security company Vasco, who carried out the survey.

The research also found that there was a slight decline in the number of virus types circulating the internet, falling from 111 in January 2006 to 95 in December. But the virus threat increased as the total email traffic of the 400 surveyed companies grew from approximately 6m emails in January to almost 20m in December 2006.

"Taking the results of the survey into account, it is clear that any company active on the internet needs to arm itself against possible online threats," said Jan Valcke, president and chief operating officer at Vasco. "Every company, regardless of their size and sector, is vulnerable and needs sizeable and flexible tools to protect their business."

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