Sophos spams spam story

SOPHOS HAS NAMED AND SHAMED the most common spam categories for 2005 so far, and guess what, the results ain't surprising.

Number one on the list is for medication and pills, making up for 41.4% of all spam e-mail reports including, of course, all of those now-classic Viagra e-mails we've come to know and loathe. Second is mortgage spam which accounts for 11.1% of all reported spam e-mails, followed by porno with a 9.5% share of reported e-mails, and finally stock scams and product adverts with 8.5% and 8.3% respectively.

Sophos analysts are weary of the rise of stock scam e-mails, worrying that really, really, really, really naive online investors might get suckered out of their money. Frankly, though, if the e-mail sender is called "2938198381314NGNNE33" and the subject heading is "Make big BUXX on the $tock Market$$" you probably deserve to be robbed of everything you have.

Sophos says that the best way for businesses to dodge spam is to adopt a multi-layered defense as well as to "implement a best practice policy regarding e-mail account usage." µ