Something to keep in mind - Lavasoft is so very aware of what directly affects our customers - you do a great job keeping us informed of what is happening in your computing lives. We'll soon be addressing one of the major e-mail annoyances and will release a new spam filter to help you combat the barrage of spam that must be invading your e-mail inbox on a daily basis now.

In light of the recently released IBM X-Force report (Sept. 2007), the time is right. The report, among other things, showed an interesting and unexpected trend with e-mail spam. The size of the spam files being sent out has decreased as a result of fewer image-based spam messages being sent out. However, what that also means is that spammers are experimenting and adopting new channels of distribution, including PDF and Excel-based spam attachments.

Spammers are also no longer content to simply send out hundreds of thousands of e-mails through the old, traditional methods. Many computer users have grown savvy enough to install spam filters on their individual machines, which forces the spammers to re-evaluate their process on the whole. So, what else do they do? They turn to malware components in order to infect an individuals machine and distribute their e-mail spam, using organized and automated methodology - taking control of your computer and forcing the spam on you.

You've also heard of "phishing", which is one of the main money windfalls for spammers. As we reported through our Lavasoft news page earlier this month, Germany just shut down an international ring of "phishers", thought to dupe computer users out of hundreds of thousands of Euros. Unfortunately folks, that is merely a drop in the bucket.

Then there was the StormWorm in august that was responsible for a 30% hike in spam activity two days later.

It all adds up to one thing. It is time that Lavasoft provided an anti-spam product for our customers. Coming soon.