14 DAY TRIAL // Global spam volume has declined 22 percent in October, from the previous month, and 47 percent since August. Spam is at its lowest point since September 2009.
Spam makes up for the vast majority of email traffic, but the volume isn't constant and can sometimes see wild variations in a short amount of time.
"In addition to events highlighted in last month’s report (Zeus ring takedown and spamit.com shutdown), Netherlands recently have taken down several servers associated with Bredolab botnet," a report (PDF) from Symantec explains.
"Historically, lower spam volume translates into lower spam percentage. This is primarily due to the volume of legitimate mail being fairly constant," the report read.
"More spam added to the legitimate mail leads to higher overall spam percentage. October was no exception to this as the overall spam percentage was 86.6 percent, the lowest since September 2009," it continues.
Several big hits to spam rings and command servers contributed to the sharp decline, though almost 9 in 10 emails were still spam. In October, 86.61 percent of all email messages were spam, down from 89.40 percent in the previous month.
Of course, just because spam volume has decreased, even dramatically, it doesn't mean that actions against a few botnets and spam rings will have any lasting effect.
As has always been the case, the fall of one distributor is quickly overcome by the rise of another and this is not about to change any time soon.
What's more, phishing websites and schemes were actually on the rise in October, albeit by a modest 0.3 percent. One growing trend is phishing on social media websites, according to the report.
While this type of phishing is still only about 4 percent of the phishing landscape, it grew 80 percent from September.