It’s good to report some good news, especially when it comes to computer security issues. Spam rates are down, and the lowest they’ve been in over a decade.
According to computer security firm Symantec, spam rates and junk email are at their lowest rates since September 2003. In June 2015, the spam rate fell to just 49.7 percent. As recently as April 2015, 52.1 percent of our emails were spam and/or junk. Symantic studied 704 billion emails. Of those, 353 billion were spam. Six years ago, around 90 percent of our emails were spam. In June 2009 alone, there were 5.7 trillion, with a T, pieces of spam invaded our email accounts. ?Several factors can be credited for the spam decrease, such as legal action against spammers, filtering by email providers, and better blocking. Just hit spammers in the pocketbook and slash their revenue. They won’t want to spam anymore.
This is good news for everyone involve, well, except for spam providers. Spam isn’t just an annoyance or nuisance, it can also be dangerous. It can lead to malware, identity theft, cyber attacks, computer shutdown. The list goes on and on. Yes, I know every business needs to advertise and promote themselves just to survive. That’s American free enterprise. There’s nothing wrong with that. But with some of these spammers, you don’t know where they’re lurking from. Some maybe trying steal your bank account information. Some spammers may be working for a hostile nation, criminal organization or even a terrorist group. I’m not trying to scare anyone. I’m just raising awareness of where spam could lead. That’s why I’m happy my email filter is working overtime. This is why we should all be relieved and happy with this report. I’m thankful for all the steps taken to bring this technology epidemic to a decline. I can only hope it declines even more. How do you feel about spam rates being down?