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Introduction
In 2003, spam cost businesses $10 billion. By 2005, the cost had risen to $50 billion. In 2007, Ferris Research estimates that spam will cost business $100 billion. Why is spam costing businesses so much more than in previous years? Simply because there's so much more spam than in previous years. In 2001, about 10% of the e-mails sent were spam. Today, more than 50% of the 50 billion e-mails sent each day are spam. Spam is no longer simply a minor annoyance - it's become a major problem which costs businesses almost $2 billion per week. And the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon. Government and industry efforts to find a solution to the problem have had next to no impact – the spammers simply keep on spamming.
Protecting e-mail systems from the exponentially increasing volume of spam has become a job which is ever more important. E-mail has become a mission critical communication channel to a constantly escalating number of businesses. In 2005, there were about 675 million business e-mail users, but it’s predicted that that number will have increased to about 935 million by 2010 – and most of those users rely on e-mail each and every day to send and receive vital business-related communications. E-mail is not a luxury, it’s a business necessity and any interruption to service can be both extremely inconvenient and extremely costly.
While protecting e-mail systems has become increasingly important, it’s also become increasingly difficult. Spammers need their e-mails to reach people and so are constantly looking for new ways to get their messages past spam filters and onto desktops. Unfortunately, some filtering methods are simply not sufficiently adaptive to be able to cope with spam’s constantly evolving form and so fail to block an unacceptably high percentage of junk e-mail. And what’s the point in a spam filter that doesn’t block spam? Most modern mail servers include mechanisms to block and filter spam. Exchange Server, with approximately 100 million seats, is the most widely used mail server today and deploys a variety of techniques to stop spam from reaching end user desktops. But, because it’s the most widely used server, it’s also the server which spammers focus most on attempting to beat: if they manage to get their spam past Exchange’s filters, they’ll be able to get it onto 100 million desktops. And, for reasons that will be outlined later in this document, spammers are often able to do just that. Therefore, businesses that wish to block a high percentage of spam cannot simply rely on their mail server’s built-in filters.
This paper will explain why businesses need to block spam, why some methods of filtering do not work and how SPAMfighter’s community-based approach to filtering enables it to detect spam more accurately and deliver a much better return on investment than other products.
Why businesses need to stop spam
Why do businesses need to stop spam? To save money, that’s why. The cost impact of spam can be considerable:
» Lost productivity
Users need to examine their e-mail and sort the good (the ham) from the bad (the spam). That process takes time - and time is money. Should an employee receive 10 spams per day and spend 20 seconds on each, about 20 hours will be lost to spam during the course of a year. In a business with 100 employees who earn an average of $30 an hour, that would translate to an annual cost of $60,000. Spam also results in calls to the Help Desk – and, of course, each of those calls costs time and money.
» IT costs
Each spam consumes bandwidth and disk storage – and businesses foot the bill for both commodities. While the cost associated with the transmission and storage of each spam will be extremely small, the cost of transmitting and storing a high volume of spams will be substantial.
» Sundry costs
Spam results in some additional costs which are almost impossible to quantify. Users will take up Help Desk time by calling for advice as to how to deal with spam. Phishing scams may result in sensitive information being disclosed. Spam containing viruses or other forms of malware may result in expensive system maintenance or downtime. A business which allows its staff to be exposed to offensive material could be held legally liable.
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