"Spam Spikes" Catch Software, Hardware and Users Off-Guard

While many sources report the amount of junk email has leveled off, some are reporting large periodic surges known as "spam spikes".

If a spam campaign is sent over a duration of several weeks or months, appliance and software providers have time to update their filters to adapt. Perhaps 30% of the first week of a campaign may be blocked, but a week later 90% might be getting eliminated.

By launching a massive "attack" of spam following a new formula - it is sometimes possible for spammers to get a larger total number of messages delivered. The campaign may be preemptively tested against various email spam killer programs to help insure that it won't be blocked; at least initially.

Unfortunately, this approach can have casualties beyond just cluttered inboxes.

While not the apparent intent, when a small company falls victim to such a surge - it can have the same effect as a denial-of-service attack. Their servers can become so overwhelmed with junk, that they are no longer able to service any other requests to send or receive email.

These types of attacks have pushed many mail server owners to deploy more ambitious systems to deal with the problem. Often, they mandate the use of certain server-side anti-spam email software for all users - even if they don't want it. While this can help alleviate the pressure on the server, it may cause missed email and eventually lost customers.

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