For many businesses, receiving spam and unwanted emails has become an on-going issue, exposing them to possible productivity and legal issues, if not handled correctly. Employees are often unaware of the potential implications of exchanging personal emails, opening emails from an unfamiliar source or clicking on links received within them, which may take them through to harmful websites. As people continue to take action on these emails, cyber criminals continue to send out spam emails in a more targeted manner and in larger volumes.

In a study carried out by AV Test – an Independent IT Security Institute based in Germany, it was found that 550,000 of the emails analysed over the 18 month period were classed as spam. The study found that 30,000 out of the 550,000 spam emails contained an attachment and just over 30% of these attachments were infected with malware. The infected attachments used included zip files, html documents, executable files, PDF’s and images.

400,000 out of the 550,000 spam emails contained a link to a website. 1% of these links brought the recipient directly to a website infected with malware. The study also analysed the number of spam emails received per day. They reported a significant decrease in spam levels on the weekend which suggests some of these botnets are located in offices. Virtually all spam e-mails are sent via PCs that are remotely controlled by botnets. When PCs infected by controlling Trojans are used, the infection remains discreet to their users. The report suggests that using up to date business antivirus software on computers virtually eliminates the possibility of a botnet taking control of the PC.

At Topsec Technology we offer a number of different IT Security services including business antivirus software. Download our Free Trial now. Contact us to find out more about our cloud based services and protect your business from cyber threats.

Source: AV-TEST Study