Clearswift's Spam Index: Buoyant Economy Prompts Fresh Stock Tip Spam Wave; Inboxes replete with 'get rich quick' scams.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- According to Clearswift, there has been a sharp rise in spam offering stock tips and a variety of money-making schemes. The strength of the economy and other factors such as increased consumer confidence and ongoing rumors of takeover bids and acquisitions are likely to have elicited a reaction from the malware community hoping to capitalize upon shoppers, spenders and gullible first-time investors.

Clearswift's Spam Index, the security industry's most in depth analysis of unsolicited emails, reports a 406% rise in share-related junk email compared to last month - this surge means that financial spam now makes up 17.71% of all spam, compared to 15.03% last month.

See accompanying spam index pie chart.

"We would advise email users to be extremely dubious of any spam that arrives in their inbox," comments Alyn Hockey, Director of Research at Clearswift. "It is highly unlikely that the senders of these emails possess any privileged information or that they will make any money from investing in them. It is more likely that spammers will dump the stocks after their victims have pushed up the share price, in order to cash in at their expense."

Stock tipping spam was first spotted by Clearswift's spam research team in April last year, when the initial influx of junk mail offering bogus stock tips saw spammers attempting to ramp up the value of penny stocks, by persuading the easily led to invest in them. Once the online criminals had successfully lured in buyers, the same stocks were immediately dumped. Although public awareness of this type of scam has increased, inexperienced investors are still at risk of being duped, especially due to the fact that a number of these emails have been tailored to look more convincing. January's spam breakdown also revealed a proliferation of suspicious moneymaking schemes which now make up almost half (41%) of scams.

Dubious degree offers for self-advancement purposes now make up over a third (38%) of the 'others' category - which as a result now represents 6.10% of all spam. Some even go as far to suggest that recipients should make it their "new year's resolution" to take a degree to improve their salary prospects.

Following the charging of two tsunami spam scammers, charity scams have undergone a renaissance period. Many of these ruses appear to centre on the bizarre idea of "car donation" - all of which are designed to persuade the recipient to part with personal information. It could also be a sign of attempts to create better-evolved versions of the '419' scam.

For the first time ever, we are seeing spammers move into the music and video download space (which represents 23% of the 'others' section) and are creating iTunes spam scams following last month's iPod spam.

While product related spam has seen a huge downturn now the gift-buying frenzy associated with Christmas is long gone, spammers now seem to be widening their 'lifestyle product' portfolio, offering golfing kit, shopping sprees and nightclub accessories. Spammers also mimicked marketing campaigns targeted around large public holiday events. Throughout last month, there was a strategic influx of emails purporting to sell hotel accommodation for New Orleans Mardi Gras in the run-up to the actual event on February 8th. Lovers were urged to get ready for Valentine's Day with a selection of discounted holiday and jewelry offers as well as associated pornographic material. Holidays made up 5% of product related spam.

Often this spam gives the UK and interesting glimpse into US popular culture. Prayers for President Bush are a popular spam theme - as are junk emails disguised as anti-Bush parodies. Entrepreneurial ideas abound: as indicated by emails that suggest people can earn money 'in their sleep' by setting up an online business. Notably, they appear to be behind then UK in the clubbing stakes (as evidenced by spam claiming to sell glowsticks).

Another interesting new social engineering tactic was uncovered - emails that manipulate popular opinions on public affairs issues, to persuade them to click on a link to a spoofed version of a news site or a spam website selling products. January also saw more disturbing new entrant to the spam index: namely, spam purporting to offer services that check up on people's pasts.

Healthcare remains the dominant part of all spam and represents 44.48% of all spam - compared to 43.77% last month. However, this could all change following Microsoft and Pfizer's pledge last week to combat Viagra spammers.

-- Clearswift strangest spam of the month --

An almost amusing email purporting to offer Degrees, Masters and PhDs based on an individual's contribution to society, which can be awarded "based on life experience...without the need for formal education".

About the Spam Index:

The spam categorization statistics were extracted from the millions of spam emails harvested by Clearswift's seed accounts on a weekly basis. They are collated and analyzed using Clearswift's spamActive service, which is an integral component of the multi-layered anti-spam protection offered by MIMEsweeper for SMTP 5.0. Updated eight times daily, spamActive routinely extracts spam terms, sender domains, URL's and subject lines, which can be automatically downloaded to updates customers' email policies.

About Clearswift:

Clearswift secures content and protects against digital attacks by enforcing security policies that increase productivity, reduce IT costs and create a safer business environment. Its world leading business is founded on providing Total Content Security for email and web.

The Internet is an invaluable business tool, but with it comes a harrowing collection of threats. Protecting against the circulation of inappropriate images and text, spam, breaches of confidentiality, and viruses is now mission critical.

Clearswift enables organizations to protect themselves against digital attacks, meet legal and regulatory requirements, implement productivity-saving policies and manage intellectual property passing through their network.

About MIMEsweeper(TM) for SMTP 5.0

MIMEsweeper for SMTP 5.0 is the most comprehensive enterprise class email content security solution available in the market, delivering the best scalability and robustness anywhere. It is a best of breed solution that counters all content security threats - spam, viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and DOS attacks, while allowing companies to remain compliant and meet best practice standards.

MIMEsweeper allows consistent policy definition and enforcement, through automated policy replication. This new version incorporates a 'roles-based' approach to administration too, moving mail management from back office to the front office. This allows, for example, the HR department - rather than IT - to implement company mail policy on, say, profanity, sexism or racism. Its unique approach to system management allows for hierarchical devolvement of duties to multiple administrators. IT managers can delegate specific responsibilities, such as server monitoring, access to particular quarantine areas and reporting, to the most appropriate administrators or department, therefore spreading the load of administration and significantly reducing the time it takes to process blocked emails.

About e-Sweeper(TM):

e-Sweeper is a managed email content security solution for service providers. Experienced professionals handle protection from content threats at the email gateway, freeing the organization from the cost of implementing the hardware, software and administration expertise necessary to effectively stop the myriad of content security threats.

Clearswift, MAILsweeper, MIMEsweeper, spamActive and ENTERPRISEsuite are trademarks or registered trademarks, in the United States, United Kingdom and certain other countries, of Clearswift Limited. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of the individual companies and are respectfully acknowledged.