The Mac Security Blog

Today is the 10th ever Safer Internet Day, an international day of awareness to help us all make the Internet a safer place to play and do business. A lot has happened in the last 10 years, both in terms of the Internet itself and specifically in terms of the safety of the Internet. Many users have only just started using the Internet in the last 10 years, so now is a good time to look back at a few notable events.

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 Tried to Curb Unwanted Emails to Minimal Effect

The CAN-SPAM Act  has helped prosecute a number of major spammers, but it has had some issues as well. Initial definitions were so weak, they actually seemed to legalize spam, and clearly the quantity of spam out there has not decreased since the act was implemented. In fact, spam has become an even greater percentage of the total number of emails crossing the networks. For every spammer or spam-sending botnet that has been shut down, another one takes its place.

When the act debuted, the total spam percentage was 40% of all email, which quickly grew in 2004 to over 72%. At its highest the total overall percentage of unwanted emails hit a whopping 97% of total emails in 2010, but as prosecution and takedown of botnets has become more effective, that percentage has decreased to around 70% of all email throughout 2012.

The Malware Wars of 2004 Kept Researchers and System Administrators Up Nights

I won’t sugarcoat it – 2004 was a miserable, sleepless year to be a malware researcher thanks to the “CAN-SPAM Act” As the financial motivation of malware gained steam, several competing malware gangs released worms that hit outbreak level, sometimes multiple times a day. That meant being called in at all hours of the day and night to respond in an adrenaline-filled emergency situation, and working long hours to help customers protect and clean up their networks.

10 years later, stealth is the order of the day. Outbreaks the size of those in 2004 now means the malware gang has drastically screwed up, and they will probably be shut down quickly. Instead of fighting a small handful of massively prevalent malware, we’re now fighting against a huge number of much more targeted malware. The total number of all known malware was well less than 200,000 in 2004, and now the total of malware discovered each day is around 200,000.