If it seems like there's more spam in recent months than ever before, it's because there is. More spam is being generated, and more spam is making it past some spam filters than ever before.

Why the upswing? Well, there are two theories, both of which make sense.

First is an increase in the use of zombie networks or "botnets" to actually send spam. Zombie networks are simply machines owned by average users like you and me, which have been infected with Malware that can be secretly instructed to send spam. Since the spam is sent from thousands, if not millions, of different machines spread all over the world, there's no reasonable way to block it.

Second is the increased ability of spammers to fool the spam filters. Have you noticed spam that contains a paragraph or two of text that "almost" makes sense, but if you read carefully is total nonsense? Or a subject line that has just random words or phrases? Those are there specifically to fool the spam filters, and it looks like its working.

So what's to be done? Or more to the point, what can you do?

Step one is don't contribute to the problem: Make sure you're running anti-spyware and anti-virus software that's regularly being updated so that it's not your machine that's sending spam.

Step two. . .  don't contribute to the problem: spam only exists because it works. If you've ever responded to, or, worse, purchased from, a spammer, you are directly contributing to the rise in spam. If spam wasn't profitable there'd be no incentive to create it.

Step three. . . Unfortunately the rise in spam has also caused many major ISPs to start getting too aggressive and it's not at all uncommon for legitimate mail to get discarded as spam. So what’s the best answer? So far a combination of a server side spam filter like our ITSolutions “Spam-a-side”© to discard the stuff - along with Outlook’s built in junk mail filter is an excellent solution. Spam-a-side is a world-class threat management solution, stopping spam, viruses, phishing, worms, directory harvest attacks and many other message attacks. Click here: Stop spam now to take a giant leap toward eliminating the problem for good. Sign up now and receive free enrolment and a 30 day free subscription.