Spam (as a percentage of all e-mail received)	Viruses (as a percentage of all e-mail received)
Jan '04	63.01%	0.77%
Feb '04	59.90%	5.19%
Mar '04	52.82%	2.31%
Apr '04	67.61%	9.64%
May '04	76.02%	9.60%
June '04	86.29%	9.61%
July '04	94.51%	7.27%
Aug '04	84.25%	6.88%
Sep '04	72.14%	4.83%
Oct '04	76.76%	3.10%
Nov '04	73.77%	2.98%
Dec '04	81.41%	1.93%
Jan '05	83.11%	2.87%
Feb '05	76.30%	2.17%
Mar '05	68.81%	2.26%
Apr '05	68.76%	2.34%
May '05	68.72%	3.11%
June '05	67.25%	3.55%
July '05	65.20%	3.10%
Aug '05	62.10%	2.30%

Source: IBM, MessageLabs, US-CERT

@Risk?

With all the worms, viruses, and phishing attacks swirling around the Internet, how can businesses understand the level of risk to their operations? IBM believes it has a tool that can help. The computer giant has developed the Global Business Security Index, which culls information from sources all over the world such as US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team) to gauge the current level of threats to corporate IT systems that rely on the Internet. Though the monthly highs for both spam and viruses are down from last summer -- just two of several types of threats that the index tracks -- the data indicates that both are slowly and steadily climbing. Since December 2004, the number of malicious e-mails worldwide has climbed from one in every 52 e-mails to one in every 43 e-mails in August 2005. Phishing, the highly targeted attacks that trick individuals into giving up sensitive information, is also sharply on the rise -- up 50% in the first half of 2005 alone.

Also see:

They're Playing Our Virus

Posted: 9/22/05