Viruses, hackers - and now spam

In just a few years, spam has turned into a major cyberthreat. Unsolicited correspondence includes advertisements for the widest imaginable range of products, ranging from university degrees to pornography. Spam may contain offensive content, but that isn't the biggest problem: it jams individual mailboxes, causes Denial of Service attacks on enterprise servers and can spread viruses.

Damming the tide

A variety of solutions have been proposed and implemented, ranging from regulation to blacklists and anti-spam filters. Governments worldwide are putting anti-spam legislation into place, though enforcing it remains a logistical headache. Blacklists need to be publicised to be effective. Once publicised, however, they are available to spammers, as well as users; spammers simply stop using the blacklisted address and otherwise continue their activities as before.

Software solutions

Antispam solutions using linguistic tools are the most effective means of protecting your PC or network from hundreds of unwanted messages. Kaspersky Lab collaborates with Ashmanov & Partners in developing advanced heuristic linguistic analysis tools to identifying and filter spam from your correspondence.

Useful links

The Spamhaus Project

Paul Graham — technical and non-technical information

Fight Spam on the Internet!

Antiphishing — antiphishing and anti-scam information