Spam Email Rate Falls to 46.4%

Posted on July 18, 2015

Spam is surprisingly not as prevalent as it once was. The percentage of email that is spam has fallen under 50% from a high of over 90%. This is good news but other bigger threats have emerged.

In August, 2006 it was reported that spam was over 95% of all emails. The percent of email that is spam has been plunging in recent months. Symantec's June 2015 Intelligence Report (PDF) says that the overall spam rate has fallen to 49.7%. This marks the first time spam has fallen under 50% of email in over a decade. Symantec says the last time a similar spam rate was recorded was in September 2003.

The spam rate has continued to fall since the Symantec report. BBC News reports that the latest data from Symantec has the spam rate down to 46.4%. The take down of major botnets has been credited for reducing the flow of spam messages.

It is good to see a major reduction in spam. Unfortunately, phising, malware and ransomware attacks remain a big problem and can cause a lot more trouble than spam.

Symantec's Ben Nahorney says, "This increase in activity lends more evidence to the idea that, with the continued drops in email-based malicious activity, attackers are simply moving to other areas of the threat landscape."