Microsoft blocks 10 million spam messages every minute and spammers continue to look for new methods to evade the spam filters. Because spam techniques change over time, also the messages users receive continue to change.
"Your spam messages may look similar, but they’re not the same; they’re slightly (or greatly) different", according to Shobhit Sahay of the Office 365 Team. Spam campaigns vary in duration from a few minutes to many hours. Microsoft has tracked campaigns that send thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of spam messages in a few minutes. To protect users from spam the team looks at specific patterns and at spam that's reported by users. Sahay therefore calls for everyone to continue to report spam.
Microsoft plans to take additional measures against spam and malicious emails. Authentication technologies like DKIM and DMARC will be implemented in Exhange Online and the company will introduce an improved protection against malicious URLs.
Sahay also advises organisation to better educate their users. Users need to be more careful when subscribing to newsletter and shouldn't post e-mail addresses on public websites. Sahay also advices to select the "custom" option when installing free software to prevent the installation of plugins or other adware/spyware on the device.
