Efficiency, productivity, profitability – all can take a serious hit if spam succeeds in accessing your business’s inboxes. Time and effort are eaten up deleting unwanted messages. Valuable bandwidth is hijacked. Networks are clogged and their smooth functioning is compromised.
In the face of this very real threat, spam filters have become increasingly effective. But in response, spammers have continually raised their game, applying their ingenuity to devise new ways
of outwitting defences and maximising the chances of unsolicited emails reaching their target.
Indeed, at the end of May 2009, image spam accounted for 41% of the world’s unsolicited emails. Moreover, this comeback has been characterised by the emergence of imaginative new image spam techniques alongside tried and tested ones. It’s become very clear that spammers are once again investing resources in developing and disseminating this potentially damaging type of spam.
This white paper, provided by MessageLabs (now part of Symantec), explains what image spam is and how it tries to escape detection, and describes a cost-effective solution to what can be an irritating and business-compromising problem.