April's spam and virus statistics from SoftScan

London, UK (8^th May 2008) - Spam levels remained relatively stable throughout April accounting for 95.30% of all email identified by SoftScan as spam. Despite high profile cases of spammers being fined and even sent to jail this week, SoftScan believes that not enough is being done to impede the profit that spammers make from junk mail and that law enforcers need to recognise that spam is not just a nuisance, but a way to commit other more serious crimes.

"The problem of spam needs to be taken more seriously," comments Diego d'Ambra, CTO of SoftScan. "Crime fighters need to realise that by coming down hard on spammers they help to fight against other types of crime such as extortion, fraud and money laundering. Spammers may not ultimately be responsible for these crimes, but they are certainly a willing and paid accomplice. Yet frequently the fines don't reflect the true nature of the offence nor the amount of money that the criminals have made."

Most of today's spam can be linked to more serious misdemeanours than offering scenes of illicit sex. From phishing for bank details and pump and dump stock scams, to enticing users to become part of a botnet used to carry out targeted infrastructure attacks, spam is far more sinister than the offences spammers are charged with.

"If any effect is to be made on discouraging spammers then charges against them need to take into consideration the end intention of the crime and fines to reflect the millions they have profited by at someone else's misery," continues Diego d'Ambra.

Virus levels remained typically low during the month accounting for just 0.09% of all email scanned. The top five virus families in April 08 were:

1 - phishing: 65.77%

2 - downloader: 22.31%

3 - ban: 2.04%

4 - dropper: 1.93%

5 - mutant: 1.83%

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About SoftScan

SoftScan is one of the leading providers of managed security services for mail, web and instant messaging. SoftScan's services protects 7,000 private and public companies on a daily basis with a combination of market leading anti-malware scanners and proactive heuristic scanning, enabling users to use the internet securely and productively. SoftScan enables organisations to have central control and a comprehensive overview of their internet traffic, whilst eliminating the need for additional resources to maintain and update the service.

SoftScan was established in 2003 and employs more than 120 people. Its services are sold in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the UK and Germany and are used in more than 100 countries.