KEY POINTS:
Christmas stockings may be well-packed at this time of year but inboxes across New Zealand are bursting at the seams with unwanted gifts as never before.
Local expert Bradley Anstis, VP products for global security specialist Marshal, says spam levels are currently "higher than ever seen".
A seasonal surge at this time of year is normal, but as spam levels have been up all year due to several large botnet operations, unsolicited mail has swelled to an unprecedented degree.
Statistics from spam monitor Barracuda in the United States put American spam levels at around 95 per cent of all emails sent.
Anstis says this figure is probably "at the high end", and that Barracuda's core installation base is very US focussed.
He said an international sampling from Marshall servers puts spam levels at 77.4 per cent.
Anstis believes that large Kiwi ISPs will "need to be very careful".
"Xtra and Ihug have histories of not being able to cope with high loads," he said, "and this time of the year is always going to be the worst."
"The spammers seem to save their best for last and spew out unprecedented volumes of spam in the lead-up to Christmas.
"Couple this with the dramatic developments in the spam world this past year and the recent emergence of botnet gangs like Storm and the Celebrity crew and you get spam levels that are more than double what they were last year."
"At this time of year, we see a lot of spam featuring gift products such as cheap replica watches, pens, lighters and handbags. However, Viagra and enlargement pills feature heavily also," said Anstis.
But Ihug, New Zealand's second largest internet service provider says it has not picked up any serious spike in spam volumes.
"We do have a pretty good program already in place for monitoring and effectively dealing with spam," said Dave Joyce, GM of marketing for the Vodafone-owned company.
"We haven't really noticed any increase in the volume of spam, so we're not having to take any additional measures to further protect our customers.
"It is a good time, however, to remind Ihug customers that if they do happen to get a dodgy email to delete it in the first instance.
"But if they do happen to open an email that they do identify as spam, definitely don't respond to it," warned Joyce.
- NZ HERALD STAFF
