Santa Likely To Receive Over A Billion Spam Emails This Christmas!

You may not believe in Santa Claus, but surely you must believe in Wikipedia, and that's enough to read this post.

According to Wikipedia roughly 33% of the World's population are Christians, the World's population is currently around 6.6 billion, and the average life expectancy is 67 years. Let's assume that 80% of children believe in Santa Claus and on average stop writing to Santa Claus at around 12 years old. Now let's assume that 50% send an email to Santa requesting a new train-set or pony.

The number of emails Santa Claus will receive this year is (6.6 billion * 0.33 * 12/67 * 0.80 * 0.50) approximately 150 million emails from excited children. That's a lot of emails! Now let's assume that poor old Santa Claus has been too busy reading emails to install an email security solution. Since his email address is so well known (santa AT thenorthpole DOT com) and the spammers, who believe in him, know he reads all his email, he'll likely be receiving over a 90% spam rate.

If only 10% are legitimate email, he'll be looking at 1.5 billion emails, 1.35 billion of which are spam!

So as you're getting ready for Christmas, or whichever holiday you celebrate, spare a thought for Santa Claus.

The Holiday Spam Surge

The Holidays are just around the corner and the associated seasonal spam surge is already underway. Traditionally we see a steep increase in spam levels from now until the end of Christmas. This can be attributed to consumers being easier targets due to an increase in their online shopping, an expectation of electronic greeting cards, a higher likelihood of impulse buying and difficulties with last minute gift ideas. All of these factors can be used by a spammer into convincing a user to open a spam e-mail or in some cases, tricking the user into providing financial information.

A common trick seen at this time of year of which e-mail users should be wary of is the "fake invoice". The natural reaction after receiving an invoice from a company for several hundred dollars is to follow the instructions to cancel the order, which often involves providing credit card information. In some cases, it can be even more subtle by simply providing a website which when visited will drop malware onto an unprotected computer.

Here is a sample of subject lines promoting gift ideas:

• We offer the most stylish Christmas presents ever!
• Christmas is an occasion for you to look more elegant!
• Perfect selection of stylish Christmas gifts in our store
• Fashionable but affordable Christmas gifts is not a myth!
• Visit our store and choose a wonderful Christmas gift!
• Affordable replicas would make perfect gift for Christmas!
• Feel the joy of giving beautiful things for Christmas!
• Give your loved ones amazing presents for Christmas!
• Elegant Christmas present is easy to find here!
• Visit this store to buy a Christmas gift!