March 2008 revealed a surprising increase in the volume of worldwide spam. An average of 81% of all the email traffic consisted of spam messages, with an astonishing peak of 88%. To give you a better idea of the increase, one of the leading security software providers, Symantec produced a report entitled the “State of Spam.”

The report revealed that only 65% of all email was unsolicited messages for the first half of 2007 which rose to 70% during the second half of the year. The company also confirmed that approximately 23% of spam messages are sent from the United States, followed by Russia with approximately 6%.

Apparently, the 2010 Soccer World Cup has already generated 419 scam email messages. Although spammers normally entice unsuspecting victims with unclaimed property, they have focused their attention on the 2010 South African World Cup as a new strategy.

April 2008 saw another new trend in the world of spam – capitalizing on the US tax year. Certain spammers are sending messages that claim to be sent by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) representatives. One of these messages advised taxpayers that they are entitled to a tax refund if they provide their payment details on a site that clearly does not belong to the IRS. Another group of spammers has utilized social engineering to dupe users into downloading malware on to their computers.

Symantec’s report includes the innovative use of TurboTax which is a popular American tax software program. Spammers send emails to users recommending they load updates to their software so they can comply with alleged new requirements established by the IRS.

If users view the details in the From field, they will notice a “cn” domain which should alert them that the message is not being sent from the IRS. The URL which is turbotax.com/update also does not come from the official TurboTax website; users are directed to an empty page with a popup requesting them to download a particular file.

Symantec advised all users to rely on common sense when they receive suspicious email messages. Another tip is to ensure their email security programs are completely up to date so they can protect your computer against new online threats that continue to emerge.

An anti-spam company located in the UK, ClearMyMail, has recently issued a report that reveals how expensive fighting spam can actually be. Dealing with unwanted email messages received by sent by American spammers can cost small or medium-sized companies as much as £4.5 billion in terms of production costs.

The report continued to explain that many employees spent the equivalent of two full work days every year sorting, downloading, reviewing and discarding unwanted spam email messages. With approximately 6 seconds spent per each message received, small enterprises who include up to 10 different email accounts can count on approximately 160 hours of lost work time. Employees end up wasting valuable time trying to sort junk email messages from legitimate ones.

To minimize any work time lost managing spam email messages, the Managing Director of ClearMyMail, Dan Field, has several suggestions. Unwanted emails have increased with the growth and popularity of email programs and the Internet. Utilizing effective anti-spam software at your office, as well as in your home can reduce the problem. Well-protected computers make it harder for spammers to exploit them in order to send unsolicited emails. With less prospective victims to target, these spammers may be forced to adopt more conventional marketing techniques.

A recent analysis was performed by ClearMyMail to determine the countries generating the highest volume of unsolicited emails to Britain. The United States was at the head of the list with slightly less than half of all junk messages originating from that country with Britain, China, France and Germany close behind. At the other end of the spectrum, Japan generated one of the fewest numbers of targeted spam to the UK with less than 3%.

Many other reports from leading security providers such as Webroot have also confirmed the statistics contained in ClearMyMail’s recent analysis. The document entitled “State of Internet Security: Protecting Business Email” revealed that the growing number of malware and junk spam messages received can devastate computer networks in small or medium-sized companies as well as small nations.