Nine Out of 10 Nigerian Princes Agree: Auto industry spammed more than any other
Want to know a fun fact that can probably win you a free round at the bar? P.T. Barnum didn't say, "There's a sucker born every minute" – a man named David Hannum did. But before that, we can talk about George Hull. After an argument with a minister about a passage in the book of Genesis that claims giants once walked the earth, Hull – an atheist – decided to construct a ten-foot fake giant and bury it on his cousin's property. A year later, he hired men to dig a well on said property where they "discovered" the giant.
Hull put the giant (now known as the Cardiff Giant) on display charging $0.25 a viewing. He quickly increased that rate to $0.50 a pop. Scientists quickly called the gypsum sculpture a hoax, although ironically, Christian fundamentalists defended the Cardiff Giant as the genuine article. A consortium of men headed by David Hannum then purchased the giant from Hull and put it on display in New York City. Because P.T. Barnum's attempts to lease or purchase the Giant were rebuffed, he simply built his own, causing Hannum to remark, "There's a sucker born every minute."
Oh yeah, an anti-spam and anti-virus company named Panda Security analyzed the email traffic from eleven different industries. It turns out that the auto industry has a greater percentage of spam and malware coming into to its servers than any other. But here's the thing: the auto industry only gets 0.11% more bad email than the second place industry (electronics) and 0.29% more junk than the cats in third place (government institutions). Ready for the punchline? 99.89% of all email received by the auto industry is either pure spam or some form of malware. Meaning that it's much closer to ten-out-of-ten Nigerian princes agreeing that spamming the auto industry is where it's at. Full press release after the jump.
[Source: Panda Security | Image: Flickr - Jul04379 via C.C. 2.0]
PRESS RELEASE:
Automotive Industry Hit Hardest by Spam, According to New Panda Security Survey
Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company, today revealed the results of its three-month long study from July to September 2009 on the prevalence of spam across a range of industries. Investigating 11 sectors, including automotive, insurance, banking, tourism, construction, food and others, Panda analyzed the email traffic generated by 867 companies in 22 countries throughout the U.S. and Europe and found that the automotive industry is the top recipient of spam and email-borne malware. In total, more than 503 million messages were analyzed. A breakdown of how each industry is affected can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/
The overall aim of the study was to compare the prevalence of spam and malware across different business sectors. Following automotive, the electronics sector and government institutions rounded out the top three recipients of spam and email-borne malware with ratios of 99.89, 99.78 and 99.60 percent, respectively. This ratio represents the percentage of spam or malicious messages in relation to all email received. Consequently, this means that just 0.11 percent of mail received by businesses in the motor industry is legitimate (similarly 0.22 percent in the electronics sector, and 0.40 percent in government institutions).
Interestingly, the banking sector, predicted by many to be a prime target, featured near the bottom of the ranking with a ratio of 92.48 percent. The education and tourism sectors close the ranking with figures of 87.98 and 87.22 percent.
There was, however, no considerable difference in the subject fields of the spam received across the various sectors. The majority, more than 68 percent, were related to pharmaceutical products. This was followed by advertisements for replica products with 18 percent, and messages with sexually explicit content at 11 percent.
Banker Trojans were responsible for approximately 70 percent of all malware detections. These were followed by adware/spyware at 22 percent, with the remainder accounted for by viruses, worms, etc.
According to Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs, "We were curious to see if spam and email-borne malware affected all companies equally, or whether there were factors that influenced the likelihood of them being targeted. We were surprised to find significant differences - up to 12 percent - in the ratio of junk mail received between different business sectors."
To help businesses be better suited and prepared for the threat of malware and prevalent spam, Panda Security has launched an education and training campaign called, 'Time For Your Business' (http://timeforyourbusiness.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nathan 8:34AM (10/29/2009)
Slow news day i guess..
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Frank 8:44AM (10/29/2009)
LOL!
Maybe Jonny should start doing a Paul Harvey schtick: "now you know the REST of the story".
Seminole 8:45AM (10/29/2009)
I think the title is hilarious, but you know somebody is gonna get all butthurt and call you guys racist or some stupid thing like that.
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Kumar 9:09AM (10/29/2009)
You must be the one person who hasn't either heard of or been on the end of a Nigerian scam attempt then? You didn't really think you were going to get full price for that car you were selling on line if you just mailed back the balance on the check, did you? ;)
Seminole 9:13AM (10/29/2009)
You need to re-read what I said. I find it hilarious. I know about the 419 scams, and love reading 419eater.com.
I was just preempting the almost guaranteed post form some closed minded and over politically correct person who'll say the title is inappropriate.
Smegley 9:51AM (10/29/2009)
Laugh all you want, Kumar, but soon I will receive the 30% of $28,000,000 that the honorable Prince Laurent Mpeti Kabila Jr of the Nigerian Oil Ministry promised to transfer me to my bank account that I provided him and then we'll see who's laughing!
I'll be rich rich RICH! And I have a mutual friend to thank for it! Thank you, mutual friend, for telling Prince Mpeti Kabila Jr what a trusted business partner I am!
Kumar 9:00AM (10/29/2009)
That sounds about par for the course. We've been averaging 90-95% for the past year at my company. If you put it into perspective of the .11%, that means just about everyone gets 90% spam for their email meals.
Most of the spam to companies comes, or used to come, from infected computers. Your company sends out emails to customers, their computers get a bug, their email address list gets boosted, whatever. Now you're on a bunch of spam lists. I know this because the email addresses that send out the most email to the public have the most spam coming back in.
So for the auto industry, it just means they may be more efficient at getting emails out to people that are as susceptible to malware attacks as they are to pushy car salesperson techniques?
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nrb 10:36AM (10/29/2009)
"We've been averaging 90-95%"
We run between 95% and 98%. Oh wait, we're in the auto industry so I guess there might be some truth to the article.
Death to spammers.
atc98092 8:47PM (10/29/2009)
Looks like I'm getting off easy at my medical center server. My weekly average runs about 86%. However, I think it's a hoot to see all these emails being blocked that offer to "increase your size". That's because part of our group are Urologists, and we have cabinets full of Viagra and Cialis!
Jake 9:06AM (10/29/2009)
Spamming must work or the spammers wouldn't waste their time doing it. I just can't see how anyone would open spam email and then click whatever links are in them and then actually purchasing something. But there must be some people who do.
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Avinash machado 9:26AM (10/29/2009)
Even Autoblog comments section keeps getting hit by spammers. Every now and then we have spammers spamming several threads here constantly.
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BigTeebo 9:42AM (10/29/2009)
Considering every 3rd commercial I see on TV is a car ad, I have no sympathy for them.
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Frank 10:26AM (10/29/2009)
Here's a spam I got the other day (they must have sent it to the wrong email address):
Dear Auto Industry CEO/President/Decision maker:
Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Wolfgang Amadeus Mossart. My employer is a rich, very prestigious auto maker from Europe. We are seeking a partner to join in a "merger of equals" in which our two buisiness will have a glorious future together. Our vehicles have a worldwide reputation for being engineered like no other car. We are able to charge ridiculous sums of money for our cars and trucks which are not built any better than anyone elses, but hey, perception is reality. If you decide to engage in our "merger of equals" we will supply your company with our valuable conultants and component parts (applicable fees will apply), and merge our purchasing operations together so that you save money in the purchase of parts and services. All that is needed is your bank account number so that we can have access to your funds, um, account and merge it with ours. If you are interested please contact me at your earliest convenience.
Auf Wiedersehn,
W.A.M.
Stutgartt
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Rich 11:01AM (10/29/2009)
"although ironically, Christian fundamentalists defended the Cardiff Giant as the genuine article."
That's not ironically. That's "as intended", or "better than intended" because we don't know precisely what the maker's intentions were.
It could only have been ironic if the plan had backfired: for example, a group of atheists suddenly becoming Christians on the phony evidence, or the Christian fundamentalists being the leading denouncers of the giant as fake.
Hey, if you set yourself up as a writer, expect some criticism.
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Rich 11:03AM (10/29/2009)
"although ironically, Christian fundamentalists defended the Cardiff Giant as the genuine article."
That's not ironically. That's "as intended", or "better than intended" because we don't know precisely what the maker's intentions were.
It could only have been ironic if the plan had backfired: for example, a group of atheists suddenly becoming Christians on the phony evidence, or the Christian fundamentalists being the leading denouncers of the giant as fake.
Hey, if you set yourself up as a writer, expect some criticism. Also, if you set up a blog with a commenting system, try to ensure it *works*. Sheesh.
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adelossa 1:26PM (10/29/2009)
damn, now I'm hungry for spam, eggs and rice.
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Joey Mazz 4:48PM (10/29/2009)
This issue with the cardiff giant is actually kinda interesting, and funny, although it has nothing to do with cars. Check it out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Giant
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Beu 6:11PM (10/30/2009)
Being a Nigerian I find the title ...how would I put it... weird...(no pun intended).
most of these scam emails originate from right here in North America from Americans.. the scam artists have moved on to other stuff as trasfering huge sum offers are kinda played out ( even though some fools fall every now and again)
We were all looking for Nigerian scam artists while Bernie Madoff
made off with $50billion...
Lets not look at the tree and miss the forest.
Gotta love my Gmail though..spam is a thing of less concen now
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