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Commtouch Reviews 2004 -- The Year of SpamMOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Jan. 11, 2005 -- Commtouch(R) (Nasdaq:CTCHC), the innovator of anti-spam solutions featuring Recurrent Pattern Detection (RPD)(TM) technology, said today that in the last 2 months of 2004 the number of daily spam attacks more than doubled to an average level of 1.35 million spam outbreaks per day, and some days exceeded 1.5 million per day. Additionally, Commtouch observed that the average duration of a spam outbreak shortened dramatically -- lasting from 2 days at the beginning of 2004 to an average of 7 hours by the end of 2004. Below is a list of key facts about spam trends that Commtouch's Spam Detection Center and the Commtouch Spam Lab identified in 2004: 'Now You See Me, Now You Don't' Spammer Game. In December 2004 the amount of domains registered by spammers to host their websites exceeded 38,400 domains, and the total number in 2004 exceeded 369,000 domains. Assuming a cost of about $10 per domain, spammers spent in 2004 over $3,690,000 for domain registration. The domains registered in December (38,400) were used to create over 6,612,000 URLs directed to spammer websites. Commtouch's Spam Detection Center found that on a monthly basis over 99.94% of the URLs were new compared with the URLs associated with spam messages in previous months. Each such domain would be utilized by the spammer for a few days only to avoid detection by those anti-spam and content filtering technologies which do not have the technological ability to detect and stop spam in real-time. Spammers Say 'Want to Buy A Watch?' The most notable spam message in 2004 was comprised of no less than one hundred million emails attempting to sell a 'Genuine Replica of Rolex.' Viagra and drugs with similar effect continued to be sold by spammers and appeared in a portion of approximately 25% of the total amount of spam. The percentage of spam that attempted to sell drugs/pharmaceuticals represented 31.5% of the total amount of spam. Consumer goods related spam accounted for 25.7% of spam. Mortgage and loan refinance email represented 8.4% of spam. Phishing email -- in which an email offer or request for information purports to be from a sender but is not from that sender -- made up 1.1% of all spam. The percentage of porn spam increased from 4.7% of all spam in 2003 to 5.4% during 2004. CAN-SPAM Isn't Canning. Commtouch found that CAN-SPAM compliance reached by the end of 2004 a steady level of about 10% of all spam. Many spam messages professed to be 'spam compliant' without any basis in fact (see Commtouch press release at http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/041115/1554991.html ). "The declaration of compliancy is just one ruse of spammers attempting to create an appearance of legitimacy," said Avner Amram, executive vice president at Commtouch. "The bottom line is that we continue to witness incredible numbers of spam email and spam outbreaks. The only realistic conclusion is that compliance to CAN-SPAM legislation is meaningless for most spammers, and the Act has proven to be ineffective." Uncle Sam King of Spam. In December 2004 over 40% of spam originated in the United States, a downturn from a high of 65% earlier in the year. At the end of 2004, spam was originating from 174 countries. The Most Do Not Host. The activities of a few countries have far-ranging consequences globally; only four countries host 99% of the websites that are referenced in spam email messages. "In December 2004, China hosted 64% of spammer web sites, the United States almost 29%, Brazil about 3.5%, and Russia almost 2.5%," said Amram. According to Amram, the most important finding of 2004 for Commtouch was that to be successful at detecting and preventing the circulation of spam and other email irritants, real-time detection and protection must be implemented. "A single spam outbreak left unimpeded goes on for hours. However, if an outbreak is caught dead cold in real-time, as is routinely the case for customers worldwide utilizing Commtouch's RPD-based solutions, in essence we have prevented an onslaught of millions of spam messages destined to infiltrate email boxes globally," added Amram. In 2004, Commtouch's anti-spam solution was the overall top-accuracy winner in an evaluation by Osterman Research. The evaluation included 23 leading anti-spam products, which had been rated by leading independent testing laboratories in 2004. Commtouch did extremely well in both of the categories surveyed: spam catch rate and accuracy. The company achieved near-perfect reliability against false positives, together with exceptionally high catch rates of 97% based on the independent analysis of the product. Commtouch's accuracy level was found to be more than 100 times better than any other product evaluated in the analysis. With an accuracy rate of 99.996%, Commtouch erroneously blocked only one in 27,900 messages. About Commtouch Commtouch Software Ltd. (Nasdaq:CTCHC) is dedicated to protecting and preserving the integrity of the world's most important communications tool -- email. A global developer and provider of proprietary anti-spam solutions, Commtouch has an installed base of over 25 million users. The company's core technologies, including RPD(TM) -- Recurrent Pattern Detection, reflect Commtouch's 13 years of experience developing messaging software. Commtouch solutions are incorporated into OEM applications and are also sold through channels and resellers. Commtouch is headquartered in Netanya, Israel and has a subsidiary in Mountain View, CA. For more information, see: www.commtouch.com. This press release contains forward-looking statements, including projections about our business, within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. For example, statements in the future tense, and statements including words such as "expect," "plan," "estimate," anticipate," or "believe" are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on information available to us at the time of the release; we assume no obligation to update any of them. The statements in this release are not guarantees of future performance and actual results could differ materially from our current expectations as a result of numerous factors, including the failure to satisfy the conditions imposed by the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel for the continued listing of Commtouch shares on The Nasdaq SmallCap Market; business conditions and growth or deterioration in the Internet market, commerce and the general economy both domestic as well as international; fewer than expected new-partner relationships; competitive factors including pricing pressures; technological developments, and products offered by competitors; availability of qualified staff for expansion; and technological difficulties and resource constraints encountered in developing new products as well as those risks described in the text of this press release or the company's Annual Reports on Form 20-F and reports on Form 6-K, which are available through www.sec.gov. Recurrent Pattern Detection and RPD are trademarks and Commtouch is a registered trademark of Commtouch Software Ltd. |
