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SEX, DRUGS AND REFINANCING TOP THE LIST OF MOST COMMON SPAM
More than 70 percent of corporate users surveyed said prescription drug spam is most prevalent

SUNNYVALE, CA. August 16, 2005 — A recent survey of nearly 800 end-users by Mirapoint, the secure messaging experts, found that prescription drug offers, financing ads and pornography represent the top three types of spam received by corporate users and consumers alike. 

While corporate users tagged prescription drug ads as the most common type of spam, consumers said financing offers were the most likely to clog their inbox. Those two spam types switched places for the number two spot with consumers and corporate users, and both groups agreed that porn was the third most common type of spam. 

As part of the survey, users also included some the strangest spam that they’ve received. Some of the most common responses were:

• Poorly written e-mail from a company purporting to sell anti-spam solutions and sympathizing with the recipient over the volume of spam received
• Blank message: no source URL, no text, no content
• "Here is your new virus you requested."
• "Sing guaranga.  Just said that.  Cool."

"Clearly the spam problem is not going away and users are being bombarded with inane and possibly offensive messages that they do not want to receive, especially in a corporate environment," said Bethany Mayer, chief marketing officer for Mirapoint.  "In light of today’s legal and regulatory requirements, enterprises should be aware of this data and take steps to ensure that their networks are protecting employees from the onslaught of spam directed at corporate inboxes."

Mirapoint offers a multi-faceted approach to blocking spam and has a proven 98 percent catch-rate with zero false positives. Mirapoint’s technology is based on heuristic rules-based scanning with automatic updates, recurrent pattern detection,  Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBLs), SMTP-based authentication, controls for blocking messages based on sender, originating domain or IP address, as well as black and white lists to further reduce incoming spam. Its unique MailHurdle technology provides a first line of defense at the SMTP-layer to block and drop unwanted connections at the network edge.

2007 Mirapoint, Inc.  All rights reserved. All company and product names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

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