Statistics and trends in spam rates

The graphs below show the number of spam and viruses received by Altospam out of all traffic. The second graph shows the percentage of spam-sending botnets out of the total number of spam messages received by Altospam.

The level of spam increased significantly in March 2014, verging on the ratio of 80% spam to the total number of emails received by all our customers. This figure reduced over the summer to an average of 50.55% in September 2014. On the other hand, the number of viruses exploded in September, with a rate of 1.05% of email traffic, the annual average being around 0.38%.

In the diagram above, the scale is not the same, as the graph only starts in 2010. But we can clearly see that the offensive launched in 2011 has borne fruit in 2011 and 2012. A serious recovery was felt at the start of 2014, only to decline again over the summer.

These graphs illustrate the cyclical and recurring nature of spammers’ influence. While some networks are dismantled and significantly reduce the spam rate, others are created. But the new players seem to play more on the ‘quality’ of spam than the quantity. Spam that can be quickly identified is increasingly rare, to the detriment of spam requiring more in-depth analysis, hence the need for a constantly evolving solution based on analysis performance. That’s why, given the number of viruses and their increasingly “surgical” attacks, we’re confident in our strategic decision to integrate an anti-virus fortress at the start of the year. In addition to 16 specific anti-spam and 5 anti-virus technologies, we have added a system for detecting suspicious attachments and analyzing file signatures. For a detailed explanation of this topic, please read the following article: https: //www.altospam.com/actualite/2014/02/la-forteresse-daltospam-les-malwares/

You can also test our solutions to evaluate their performance: https: //www.altospam.com/fr/test-gratuit.php