I'm sure everyone's noticed the steady increase in the number of junk messages that come through your e-mail inbox every day. What was once an occasional nuisance has now become such a large problem that it has spawned a multi-billion dollar industry in e-mail security tools and appliances. It has turned into an arms race between spammers and spam blockers, as each side is continually both trying to circumvent known protections/exploits as well as developing brand new tools to defeat their foes. It has reached the point now where spam actually accounts for 9 out of 10 messages, with the volume of spam tripling since June of this year.
Where is it coming from? The United States, China and Poland mainly. The most common tool for sending spam? Botnets, or collections of hundreds if not thousands of home/work PCs that have been hacked or infected with a virus that allows a single individual to direct all compromised systems to send out emails, ensuring anonymity of the original spammer.
For more details on the rise in spam and what companies such as Postini, Barracuda and others are doing to keep your inbox clean, check the story on CNN.