Thank You for NOT Clicking (Spam Links)

A new study is suggesting that with spam filtering and perhaps user education, only a small percentage of spam gets opened or clicked on, or more precisely "less than 0.00001 per cent."

Researchers at UCSD took an admittedly "legally grey" approach by infiltrating a spam generating network and investigated how many responses they got from the spam they sent. Unfortunately given the amount of spam that is sent globally, even with such a small open and click-through rate, researchers extrapolate that the single spam network would still manage to make $7000/day, or $3.5 million a year.

So, do your part to make sure that your computer is not part of a spam network by running antivirus and antispyware programs, and update their definitions files regularly. It's also a good idea to talk to staff and volunteers using machines at your nonprofit to educate them about common spam and phishing subject lines and tactics so they can avoid clicking in the first place.

You can visit TechSoup's Security Corner for more information.