5 years ago... One in five corporate servers hijacked by spam-mailers

We can't say we weren't warned but the problem has only got worse...

10.11.98: Another set of shocking security statistics has emerged from an internet audit published this week by NTA Monitor. The security consultant says one in five of the corporates it surveyed has had its servers hijacked by spammers because out-of-date security software.

This morning silicon.com reported that NTA Monitor conducted an internet survey which found that over half of Europe's corporations have security flaws on their email servers leaving internal communications vulnerable to outside interference.

Now NTA has revealed further evidence to show how damaging these lax security measures can be.

Over the last nine months, according to Roy Hills, technical director at NTA, nearly 20 per cent of the company's 100 corporate clients have had their servers attacked. According to NTA, a spamming technique known as public relaying allows offenders to re-route emails through an unsuspecting corporation's server.

10.11.03: If vulnerability to open relays was "shocking" five years ago then what is it now?

There are now even dedicated services such as DSBL (the distributed server boycott list) which names, shames and then blocks email from companies whose servers are open to abuse by spammers, so common has the problem become.

And these aren't fly-by-night operations either. One such company to recently be outed for this offence was BT. http://www.silicon.com/networks/lans/0,39024663,10004587,00.htm

And the problem shows little sign of abating. The biggest reason for an escalation of the threat is an unholy alliance between virus writers and spammers http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/thespamreport/0,39025001,10004899,00.htm which means Trojans are being placed on machines to open up these relays for spammers to abuse. This is a threat to businesses and consumers alike and is likely to account for a continued rise in volumes of spam for some time to come.