Spam is as old as email itself, from those who were posing as Nigerian bankers or online payment services; all scams. However, the latest study by TNS Global on security in e-mail and company Halon technology, spammers have developed new techniques of deception to infect our computers with toxic messages.
According to the study “Spam and user behavior” (‘Email Spam and Related User Behavior’), 94.7 percent of Americans have received spam with virus or spyware programs or spyware. While most detects these emails as potential dangers, 30 percent were about to open attachments and infect their computers and 8 percent it finally did.
And spammers continue to invent ways to trick Internet users in their email accounts, studying their online activities. So, now they have joined the bandwagon of social networks facebook at the head, which is sensed by 15.2 percent accounts are spam, and only slightly greater increase in emails that comes mostly from financial institutions (15.9 percent).
“Users are increasingly aware of the dangers of spam, but spammers are becoming more sophisticated in developing these messages,” says Jonas Falck, co-founder and CEO of Halon North America. “Service providers and e-mail does not always prevent the risks of dangerous email that reaches them, which is why the Internet should be prudent and careful with what comes to their mailboxes, which can destroy your hard drives temporarily or forever . “
The most conclusive study TNS keys indicate that:
- 1 in 3 Americans admit that it would open an unsolicited email even when you have suspicious-looking in terms of what indicated in “Subject”
- Women are particularly prone to open spam appears to come from a social network
- Men fall more spam with promises of income or pictures of friends or famous naked.
- The text in the “Subject” is what most alert the user to the danger of the message, at 70.5 percent
- Other indicators are the sender (67.9 percent), an abnormal format, unusual (62.4 percent) and a strange writing (56 percent).