Technology Releases - Security

MessageLabs Intelligence has observed the amount of spam sent out from webmail accounts is changing.

At the start of November 2009, webmail-generated spam accounted for about 0.5% of the total blocked spam, then one month later it increased to 1%, followed by a steady drop over the rest of the measurement period with the exception of some spikes.

The reason for the decline is due to the fact that major webmail service providers have increased the security of their CAPTCHA protection system since 2008, which makes CAPTCHA harder to be broken. But the race between CAPTCHA designers and breakers will never cease and we might see increasing spam from webmail accounts created through cracking CAPTCHA systems.

For more detail and to observe the data view this MessageLabs Intelligence blog: http://bit.ly/aPVnr0

For more information:

• www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/captchas-breaking-shadow-economy

<a href="http://www.whatech.com.au/technology-releases/security/2144-increased-security-of-captcha-protection-systems-cause-webmail-generated-spam-to-decline">Increased security of CAPTCHA protection systems cause webmail generated spam to decline</a>

Contact Author

Your name:
Email:
Security Code:
Message: