- DEFINITIONS
“Spamming refers to the act of sending unsolicited and often unwanted messages in bulk, typically through email, but it can also occur through other channels like text messages, instant messaging, or social media. Spam messages are usually sent indiscriminately to a large number of recipients, without their consent or any previous relationship with the sender.”
Spam messages are commonly associated with various types of unwanted content, such as advertisements, promotions, scams, phishing attempts, malware distribution, or other fraudulent activities. The primary characteristics of spam include
Unsolicited nature: Spam messages are sent without the recipient’s permission or request. The recipients have not willingly subscribed to receive such messages.
Bulk sending: Spam messages are typically sent in large volumes, targeting as many recipients as possible. Spammers often use automated software or tools to send these messages efficiently.
Commercial or malicious intent: Spam messages often aim to promote products, services, or websites for commercial gain. However, they can also be used to deceive recipients, gather personal information, spread malware, or carry out fraudulent schemes.
Deceptive practices: Spammers may use various tactics to deceive recipients, such as using misleading subject lines, disguising their identity, or employing manipulative techniques to bypass spam filters.
Spamming is generally considered a nuisance and can have negative effects, including:
- Overwhelming email inboxes and cluttering communication channels.
- Wasting recipients’ time and attention on unwanted and irrelevant messages.
- Increasing the risk of falling victim to scams, phishing attempts, or malware infections.
- Diluting the effectiveness of legitimate marketing and communication efforts.
- Straining network resources and causing additional costs for service providers.
The development of spam in job research is a complex issue that involves various factors, including the proliferation of terminologies, the lack of standardization, and the use of neologisms in scientific and technical communication.
Neologisms are new words or phrases that are created to express emerging needs in language development. They can be unique strings of characters or existing words with new meanings. For example, the English word “webisode” is a neologism that combines “web” and “episode” to refer to a short video episode that is distributed online. Similarly, in Kiswahili, the word “runinga” is a neologism that combines “rununu” (brain) and “ninga” (to think) to refer to a meeting of the mind[1].
The use of neologisms can be beneficial in scientific and technical communication as it allows for the creation of new lexicons to express emerging needs. However, the creation of a large body of terms designating a single concept can be an impediment to communication. When terms are clearly assigned to concepts, ambiguity and confusion can be avoided.
The uncoordinated development of terminology has given rise to a number of problems, including the lack of agreed-upon suitable Swahili technical terms, inadequate Swahili equivalences, competing terms, distorted terms, and partially nativized terms[1]. These problems can lead to misinterpretations or misinterpretations, which can be particularly problematic in areas of common interest, such as science and technology.
Technological communication that is made available through technical terminology should be reliable and dependable. Terminology plays an important role in technical and scientific communication, and terminology users, such as translators and interpreters, expect the information provided to be correct and authoritative. To ensure efficient communication, terminology meant for international consumption should ensure an efficient communication process, leaving no room for subjective interpretations or misinterpretations[1].
In summary, the development of spam in job research is a complex issue that involves the proliferation of terminologies, the lack of standardization, and the use of neologisms in scientific and technical communication. To address these challenges, it is essential to ensure that terminology is well-coordinated, clearly assigned to concepts, and reliable and dependable. This will help to avoid ambiguity and confusion and ensure efficient communication in areas of common interest, such as science and technology.
Citations:
[1] http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/bitstream/handle/11295/75598/Kinyanjui_Challenges%20of%20competing%20neologisms.pdf?sequence=3
[2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/terminologies-data-science-artificial-intelligence-ai-jha
[3] https://journals.openedition.org/asp/3810
[4] https://resumeworded.com/linkedin-samples/research-linkedin-headline-examples
[5] https://www.testgorilla.com/blog/quantitative-analyst-job-description/
To combat spam, organizations and email service providers employ various anti-spam measures, including spam filters and blacklists, to minimize the impact of unwanted messages. It is important to avoid engaging in spamming activities as they can lead to legal consequences, damage to one’s reputation, and being blocked by internet service providers or email services.
Anti-spam measures can be categorized into several types, including filtering, blocking, and user education.
- Filtering: This involves using software tools to analyze incoming emails and block those that appear suspicious. Anti-spam software tools can block suspicious emails based on certain criteria, such as the sender’s address, the email’s content, or the email’s headers. For example, anti-spam software can use Bayesian filtering to analyze the content of an email and determine its likelihood of being spam. This type of filtering uses statistical methods to determine the probability of an email being spam based on its content and other factors.
- Blocking: This involves blocking emails from specific senders or domains. This can be done using various methods, such as blocking emails from known spam domains or blocking emails that contain certain keywords. For example, email service providers can use real-time blacklists (RBLs) to block emails from known spam domains. RBLs are lists of IP addresses and domains that are known to send spam.
- User Education: This involves educating users about the risks of spam and how to identify and avoid it. This can be done through various methods, such as providing training to employees, creating awareness campaigns, or providing resources to help users identify and avoid spam. For example, email service providers can provide resources to help users identify phishing emails, which are a common type of spam.
- Network-level Measures: These measures are designed to prevent spam from entering a network in the first place. For example, email service providers can use rate limiting to limit the number of emails that can be sent from a single IP address. This can help prevent spammers from sending large volumes of spam to a network.
- Legislation and Regulation: Governments and regulatory bodies can also play a role in combating spam. For example, the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States sets rules for commercial email and gives recipients the right to have companies stop emailing them.
- Collaboration and Information Sharing: Collaboration between organizations and email service providers can also help combat spam. For example, the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG) is an organization that brings together industry leaders to combat abuse in messaging and mobile networks.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): AI and ML can be used to analyze patterns in spam emails and identify new spam campaigns. For example, ML algorithms can be used to identify new spam campaigns based on patterns in the content, headers, or metadata of spam emails.
- User Authentication: Implementing user authentication measures, such as two-factor authentication (2FA), can help prevent spam by ensuring that only authorized users can access email accounts.
- Email Encryption: Encrypting emails can help prevent spam by making it more difficult for spammers to intercept and read email messages.
- Email Archiving: Archiving emails can help organizations comply with regulations and legal requirements related to email retention and retrieval. This can also help organizations identify and respond to spam by providing a record of all email messages sent and received.
In summary, anti-spam measures can be categorized into several types, including filtering, blocking, user education, network-level measures, legislation and regulation, collaboration and information sharing, AI and ML, user authentication, email encryption, and email archiving. These measures can help organizations and email service providers combat spam and protect users from the risks associated with spam.
Citations:
[1] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=0d79bacd837a94b3ea909d0c3b230e3b13e16d6e&repid=rep1&type=pdf
[2] https://www.nist.gov/itl/smallbusinesscyber/cybersecurity-basics/glossary
[3] https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/disinformation-glossary-150-terms-to-understand-the-information-disorder/
[4] https://cybeready.com/phishing-attacks/ultimate-guide-to-phishing-protection
[5] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomp.2021.563060/full
Spam Volume Statistics
Faced with the growing number of spams like in 1997 it was considered that 43% of Traffic was spams, an international organization was formed in 1998 to fight against spammers.
Daily spam messages have been on the increase across the globe, just take a look at these stats.
- The country with the most spam emails is the U.S.
- Global daily spam volume reached its highest point in July 2021.
- 283 billion spam emails were detected from a total of 336.41 billion sent emails in 2021.
- Since 2017, the number of phishing websites has risen by 130.5%.
- By 2025, hackers are expected to have caused more than $10.5 trillion in financial loss.
- There has been a 17% increase from 2020 to 2021 in cybersecurity employees across the globe.
- In June 2021 alone there were 5.9 billion spam calls reported.
- User complaints about spam texts increased by 146% in 2021.
- Reported growth in spam robocalls and text produced an estimated $29.8 billion loss in 2021.
- Advertising and marketing-related spam are the most prevalent spam type. They account for 36% of all spam emails.
- Most spam emails include a dangerous attachment.
- The number of websites that phish has risen by 130.5% over the past three years.
- Spain was the most attacked country in 2020 with a dismal 7.76% of registered antivirus activation.
- Germany was the next most targeted country with 7.05% antivirus activation, followed by Russia with 5.87% activation.
- For the U.S., the total for 2020 reported spam cases caused more than $4.1 billion in losses.
Spamming imposes significant costs on society, affecting productivity, security, and trust in communication channels. The 2004 worldwide productivity cost of spam was estimated to be $50 billion, highlighting its economic impact[3]. Spam is often sent by a small number of spammers, with the United States, China, and Russia being the major sources[3].
The costs of spam can be categorized into direct and indirect costs. Direct costs include the financial burden on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and businesses for filtering, managing, and deleting spam messages. Indirect costs, however, are more significant and affect society as a whole. These include:
- Productivity loss: Spam messages consume time and resources, leading to reduced productivity for individuals and businesses. Time spent filtering, deleting, and managing spam messages could be used for more productive tasks[1][3].
- Security risks: Spam messages often contain malware, phishing links, or other malicious content that can compromise the security of users’ devices and networks. This can lead to identity theft, financial losses, and data breaches[1][3].
- Reduced trust in communication channels: Spam erodes trust in communication channels, such as email and social media, as users become wary of unsolicited messages. This can negatively impact the effectiveness of these channels for legitimate communication and commerce[1][3].
- Negative externalities: As spam is essentially postage due advertising, the expense of sending spam is borne mostly by the recipient, making it an example of a negative externality. This can lead to market inefficiencies and social welfare losses[1][3].
To address the issue of spam, various anti-spam techniques have been developed, including legislation, filtering technologies, and user education[3]. However, the international nature of spam and the evolving tactics of spammers make it a challenging issue to tackle effectively.
Citations:
[1] https://www.oecd.org/digital/consumer/36494147.pdf
[2] https://www.slideshare.net/altacitglobal/an-overview-on-laws-against-spamming-in-india
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spam
[4] https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/doc/2014/what-is-spam/
[5] https://onlineethics.org/cases/ethics-and-professional-responsibility-computing
Email Spam Statistics
Users send 306.4 billion emails daily.
- For every 12,500,000 emails sent, spammers receive one reply.
- Spam email sites generate around $7,000 per day for senders. It’s a good business in hands of Mafias
- Email is responsible for close to 94% of all malware.
- 1 out of every 4,200 emails sent in 2020 were phishing scams.
- 30% of people unintentionally open a phishing scam email.
- 12% of those recipients who accidentally open a phishing email will click the link inside.
- Emails that have no subject are often referred to as spam.
- 70% of spammers never write any subject in the mail.
- In the U.S., around 23% of companies report more than 500 suspicious different emails every week.
- Gmail servers have blocked around 900 billion phishing emails with their advanced filters.
- More than 75% of all targeted cyberattacks begin with a single email.
- The top malicious email attachment types are .doc .pdf and .dot which make up 57% of spam emails.
- The second highest spam attachment format is .exe, making up 19.5% of emails.
- Spam text complaints increased by 146% in 2020 as a result of covid-19.
- 14% of online fundraising emails end up in spam folders.
3. Smart phone Spam Statistics
- Are scam calls and scam text messages still prevalent in 2023?
- Approximately 78% of internet fraud is achieved via mobile devices.
- 24,000 malicious mobile apps are blocked from app stores each day.
- Some studies found that Android phones are actually riskier than iOS devices because of the variety of operating system versions used by Android phone manufacturers.
- Popular mobile social media app, Instagram found that bots comprise 19% of all users.
- There were 150 million spam accounts on Instagram in 2019.
- 1 in 36 smartphones was equipped with high-risk applications in 2018.
- In 2020, 56 million people in the U.S. fell for a phone scam and lost money.
- 44% of U.S. citizens received spam COVID-19 calls or messages in the past few years.
- In 2019, the average number of spam calls per user was 18.2 per month.
- The U.S. jumped from 8th place in 2019 to 2nd in 2020 on the list of countries affected by spam calls.
4. Spam Statistics by Region
Here’s a short list of live spams that is currently active in the following countries
- China – 14,292
- United States of America – 7,806
- France – 862
- Turkey – 793
- Saudi Arabia – 792
- Mexico – 760
- Dominican Republic – 679
- Russian Federation – 677
- India – 644
- Germany – 597
5. Most Common Spams
Phishing attempts and spam issues can look different to different people. That’s because there are over 15 common types of spam. Some of these include:
- Lottery scams
- Nigerian Prince scams
- Credit card scams
- Bank scams
- Amazon scams
- Literary scams
- Poetry scams
- Jury duty scams
- Chain letters and email scams
- IRS email scams
- Vector Marketing Scams
- PayPal Scam
- Missing Person Scam
- Envelope Stuffing
- Work From Home Scams
- Work At Home scams
- Free Vacation Scam
6. These common spam emails and phishing lures have a detrimental effect on email users.
- 38 to 48% of victims find out about identity theft within 3 months of it happening to them.
- Victims spend between three- and 5000-hours repairing damage done by identity theft.
- 40% of business costs for individual cases of identity theft exceed $15,000.
- 66% of victims’ personal information is used to open a new credit card account.
- 46% of U.S. adults admit they wouldn’t know what to do if their identity was stolen.
Conclusion: Are Spam Messages Increasing?
- According to current internet spam statistics, spam rates increased dramatically over the 2020/2021 period due to the hysteria created by the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Money scams and phishing campaigns have become a costly issue for victims, businesses, and even NGOs who end up in spam folders despite not being malicious.
- The volume of spam has been steadily increasing with the majority of spam from the past five years coming out of the Russian Federation.
- This huge increase in unwanted calls, phishing links in emails, and spam text messages has resulted in more jobs for cybersecurity agents and a growth in revenue for detection systems.
- Let’s hope that anti-phishing systems and new malware warnings from tech companies can reduce the cost of spam on global economies.
- Average daily spam volume worldwide from October 2020 to September 2021, Global number of spam content removed by Facebook from 4th quarter 2017 to 2nd quarter 2022 by Statista
- Spam Statistics and Facts by Spam Laws