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Over half of people 'click on spam emails'

Despite being aware of the risks associated with spam emails, many people still choose to open and respond to them, according to new research.

A study conducted by the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group found that over half of people questioned have opened a message they thought was spam.

When it came to deciding what was spam mail, two-thirds of those questioned used the sender's name as an indicator, while 45 per cent looked at the message's subject line.

Almost a fifth of those who had opened spam mail said they had done so in error, while 12 per said they were interested in a product or service it appeared to offer and a similar number were not sure what had prompted them.

Six per cent admitted they just wanted to see what would happen.

The research also indicated that many people are optimistic about their chances of falling victim to a computer virus, with 14 per cent saying they do not think they will ever have one.

Recent research conducted by Foviance on behalf of Oracle found that 72 per cent of people said they had at least one IT security problem in the past three months.

It was found that the majority of people blamed themselves for these issues.

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