By: Brooke Crothers
Spam is still the go-to scheme to get malware on your computer.
More than 40 years after the first spam email was sent, it’s still a reliable way to infect your computer, according to Helsinki-based cybersecurity firm F-Secure.
The first spam was transmitted in 1978 when an email was sent via Arpanet, a precursor to the Internet, to 400 users. Since then, spam has remained one of the “main infection vectors” for malware, according to F-Secure.
Malicious spam is typically spread through links to shady websites, scams, and infected attachments.
Click rates for spam rose to 14.2 percent in the first half of 2018 from from 13.4 percent in the second half of 2017, said MWR InfoSecurity, which was acquired by F-Secure in June.