What are the Impacts of Spam on my Business?

If aliens decided to use our email as a tool for understanding our culture, they would assume most of our time was spent refinancing our homes, buying replica watches, and taking little blue pills to improve our love life! With over 80% of email coming in as spam, their is a real dollar cost to a business. The biggest impact from spam is:

1. Loss of productivity
2. Exposure to viruses, adware, etc.
3. Inappropriate content
4. Consumption of Computer Resources
5. Legal Risk

Productivity Loss from Spam

One of the greatest costly effects of spam on organizations is the loss of productivity they encounter when dealing with spam. Employees are forced to take time away from their work and manage the spam in their inboxes. Not only does managing it waste valuable time, but spam also creates a distraction and reduces productivity by drawing employees into spam-linked websites.

Exposure to Malware, Adware, Spyware

Another costly impact of spam is the creation of hidden viruses that can get into a system and infect it thus impacting your entire network. If an employee opens an unidentified e-mail that contains a virus, your entire network and customer information is at risk. In addition to viruses, spyware, and adware are problems created by spam that disrupt the flow of you business.

Loss of Corporate Assets

Spam often leaks inappropriate content into corporate email accounts. Much of the material in junk email is offensive, adult material which leads to disputes, costly ramifications as well as legal issues. Surely this is a problem human resource departments would like to avoid.

Spams Effect on Your Computer Network

Another direct effect of spam is the consumption of computer and network resources. Spam eats up a lot of network bandwidth which reduces the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. Organizations may experience storage loss through backing up emails that are spam.

The Legal Risk of Spam

A final risk that many companies don’t think about is the problem of outgoing spam. Many adware and spyware attacks turn your computers into spam slaves, forcing your network to do the work of the spammer. Of course, if spam can be traced to your computer systems you can be completely banned by some email servers, preventing legitimate email from going through. Also, you can be involved legally for violation of the CAN-SPAM rules, even though your systems where just zombies, not willing participants.Having a good spam filter is the first step. However, a spam filter is only as good as the organization that is putting it to use. Working with pros to identify the challenges you may face and the best way to set up your spam filters and anti spam software solutions is key to getting the most out of your IT investment. Don’t let junk spam rule your business life. Take action to stop it NOW!