Inner west a prime target for spammers
If you think the tsunami of email spam just keeps getting worse, you may be onto something. A recent report listed Leichhardt and Marrickville as two of the top four suburbs in NSW for attracting spam in June.
The two inner western suburbs took out the dubious honour of third and fourth overall in the MessageLabs report, behind top-ranked Goulburn and second-placed Griffith.
According to a spokesperson for Symantec, Adrian Covich, a possible reason for this is the inner west’s concentration of small-to-medium sized businesses. The majority of spam email consists of unsolicited commercial bulk email, and smaller businesses are especially vulnerable to attack due to assumptions on the part of spammers. “[Small businesses] are regarded as having less protection for their IT services – people often assume big companies have greater protection against spam,” Mr Covich said.
The report found the amount of spam could be as much as seven per cent higher for small businesses than for larger ones.
Mr Covich added areas with high levels of government involvement generally represented a prime target for spammers, with targeted phishing and malware attacks increasingly making themselves felt.
If you’re looking to get away from the spammers, consider a move to Kensington, Homebush or Mona Vale. These three suburbs were the least hit by spammers in June, with the latter also the least afflicted suburb in the country.
Ultimately, however, there is little one can do to combat spam beyond implementing the advice already well-known to most – don’t click on emails where you are unsure of the source, don’t reply to unsolicited emails, and ensure your antivirus and browser are up-to-date. That way, you’ll prevent yourself becoming a victim. As Mr Covich concluded: “Spammers exist because they make money – to a certain extent, they’re there because they’re successful.”
