According to the Dulles, Va.-based AOL, its 2005 analysis of hundreds of billions of attempted spam messages targeting its global e-mail customers finds that spammers are using more "special-order" style subject lines.

Instead of generic pitches for products, "special-order spam" attempts trick consumers by pretending to be from a friend or part of a legitimate, customer-driven transaction.

Six in 10 of the top subject lines this year fall into this category, compared with just two in 2004 and none in 2003.

Charles Stiles, AOL's Postmaster said while the volume of spam reaching AOL e-mail inboxes has remained at low levels compared to its height in late 2003, the spam that's out there is "more insidious, crafty, devious, and dangerous than ever."

In 2005, AOL blocked an average of 1.5 billion spam messages each day from reaching the e-mail boxes of the AOL Network. The total number of spam e-mails blocked by AOL in 2005 reached over a half trillion (556 billion) - a slight increase over 2004.

The percentage of total e-mail that AOL blocks as spam at the gateway reached 80 percent in 2005.


Source: InternetNews