If you think you’re getting a lot of spam these days, well, you are not alone. Microsoft has released a report that says 97 % of mail that is being sent is unwanted spam like phishing attacks or viruses.
The good news: Spam filters are getting better than ever. Microsoft’s filter system for Exchange now scrubs out 39 out of every 40 emails sent. Spam also saw that slight decline thanks to the shut down last year of the ISP McColo, a major haven for spammers who suddenly had to go shopping elsewhere.

What are we being spammed about? Pharmacy and other product ads make up the lion’s share of spam, accounting for 72.2 percent of all spam sent. Only 10 % of that is for Viagra or Cialis. Image-only spam, dating come-ons, financial spam, and fraudulent diplomas round out the remainder of the most common spam subjects.
In the related world of malware infections, the Microsoft report noted that worldwide, 8.6 machines were suffering from malware for every 1,000 which were clean. That sounds pretty good, but it still translates to about 9 million computers worldwide suffering from malware attacks. What do you need to watch out for today, attack-wise? The most common attacks at the moment target Microsoft Office and PDF files, and those types of attacks are further on the rise.

Is your computer protected? The only way to stay ahead of these spammers is to keep all your softwares up to date and keep your Anti virus up to date as well. If you don’t have one I encourage you to buy a real anti virus. I use Pareto Logic anti virus. One worry out of my way.

In the world of spam, what goes down must come up.
Spam actually went down after the shutting down of the webhost McColo. Some 450,000 infected computers have been spotted trying to connect to the largest of the networks McColo hosted. A news item in BBC website.
Apparently McColo served as host to a number of “command and control” centres for botnets, networks of infected computers called bots that send spam and engage in other malicious activities. As there is no centralized command the bot owners will be looking for new hosts.
FireEye security firm has found  450,000 infected computers from one botnet. This accounts for almost half the spam in the world!
Christmas time is an active time for spam. So to fill in the gap with low spam other hosts have increased their activity. So yes very soon they will reach the old levels again. All we can do is have good virus protection and anti spam programs to combat these viruses. Is your computer protected?
I use Pareto Logic anti spam and virus protection. I strongly encourage you to get your computer protected against these vicious programs.
Check out Pareto Logic anti virus program

In my last post I talked about spam comments in blogs and how to stop them. I found out my Akismet (spam catcher plugin) got uninstalled for some reason. And that is why the spam was just pouring in.

I uploaded the plugin again and installed. And guess what in the past 2 days Akismet stopped about 30 spam comments! Phew I love that plugin. So if you have a blog and getting a lot of spam comments. Download Akismet.

These days Akismet comes pre installed in WordPress. All you have to do is to register at Wordpress. You will be given an API key. all you have to do is to enter the API key and your Akismet plugin is activated.

Another fantastic plugin is Blog Stats. It is so detailed in giving you where your traffic is coming from how they are searching for you etc. I just love it. The keywords are given to you on a platter. Then all you do is go and write a post or tweak your page accordingly.

Download Blog Stats from WordPress.

You will need your API key for this as well. Happy blogging.

I have been away from this blog for the past two weeks. Life got in my way. When I logged in to write a post. I saw about 50 spam comments selling the usual viagra or canadian pharmacy. It has become a bit of a pain deleting the spam posts from time to time. So I googled for a solution.  Saw Shoemoney’s blog had some tips. So I will be implementing these in the next couple of days.  I hope they do work. Otherwise I will be researching on this some more.

Download how to stop spam comments on your blog
I am also going to install captcha to post a comment. You can download it from protectwebform.com. It is free, all you have to do is to create an account. Let us see if all these steps will reduce the spam comment in my blog.

Now that I am back from my break I will be post 2-3 a week.