Gmail Spam Doubles, Duping Junk Blocker

Program touted to tell real email from spam 'defeated'
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 10, 2008 7:09 PM CDT

Spammers doubled junk mail from Gmail accounts last month and all but iced a touted spam-blocker, PC World reports. Gmail junk rose from 1.3% to 2.6% of all spam in February, overwhelming the company's CAPTCHA programs with spam from multiple accounts. "It's only a matter of time before (CAPTCHAs) are comprehensively defeated," one analyst said.

Gmail's CAPTCHA programs, which try to tell human emailers from machines, stopped 80% of the junk mail but were swamped by spam from two hosts, according to one security vendor. Almost nine in 10 junk emails come from Yahoo's free accounts, but businesses are unwilling to snub messages from such free email domains because they have legitimate uses. (More Gmail stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X