A new report by Microsoft reveals what many of us already know. More than 75% of all emails sent are spam, and more often than not these days, contain malicious links or attachments. Malware is becoming more and more widespread. The report says that there are nearly 9 infected PCs for every 1,000 clean ones. Still, ads for shady pharmaceuticals make up most spam, with adult oriented spam a close second.

Fear not however as most spam never makes it to people’s inboxes:

          Cliff Evans, head of security and privacy for Microsoft in the UK, told BBC News: “The good news is that the majority of that never hits your inbox although some will get through.”
Ed Gibson, chief cyber security advisor at Microsoft, said the rise in spam was due to traditional organised crime figures moving away from exploiting software vulnerabilities and “targeting the weak link that is you and me”.
“With higher capacity broadband and better OS (operating systems), and higher power computers it is easier now to send out billions of spams. Three or four years ago the capacity wasn’t there.”

If you’ve ever checked your spam filter you’ll see that this is true. Mine gets close to 100 spam messages a day, most of it promising me great deals on miracle drugs or a lucrative job offer.

The report went on to list the top malware infected countries, with Russia and Brazil leading the way. Serbia and Turkey also made the list. This is not surprising. Hackers and spammers tend to locate their operations in countries like this where the chances of being caught and/or persecuted are slim to none, and education about internet security in these countries is not widespread, making people more likely to fall for their scams.

One of the most widespread types of malware is the infamous fake antivirus scam, which tricks the user into thinking that they have an infected system and tells them if they pay around $30 for “Anti-Virus 2009” it will clean it up for them. In actuality, there was no infection and the software is completely fake, although often it will download other malicious programs or spyware. It’s a 21st century twist on the old snake oil scam.

Spam levels and malware attacks are expected to keep increasing so it’s crucial to have a good security program with an anti-virus and anti-spyware program, but even more crucial to keep it updated at all times!