By Victoria Barker

ONE in every 416 e-mail messages now contains a harmful attachment - one that could infect your computer with a virus.

This is according to IT-security and control firm Sophos, which released a report on its investigation into the latest spam trends for the third quarter of the year yesterday.

In the second quarter of the year, one in every 3,333 e-mail messages contained a dangerous attachment. That translates into an eight-fold increase in spam mail in July to September.

Topping Sophos' list of countries responsible for relaying spam across the globe during this period was the United States.

Also in the top 10 were Russia, Turkey, China, Brazil, South Korea, India, Argentina, Italy and the United Kingdom. Singapore ranked No. 42.

But Asia as a whole ranked first in terms of continents with the biggest spam problems, followed by Europe, North America, South America and Africa.

Spamming refers to the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages.

Opening a malicious attachment in a spam e-mail message could expose users' computers to the risk of virus infection and spyware invasion, and potentially put their identity and finances at risk.

The Government has taken steps to address this problem.

Last year, the Spam Control Bill was passed by the Singapore Parliament. It does not make spamming an offence, but individuals or companies can take civil action against spammers and can be awarded damages of up to $25 per message sent.

For now, Windows users seem to be bearing the brunt of the problem, according to the Sophos report.

The most widespread virus attacks transmitted by spam, such as the Agent-HNY Trojan Horse - which was spammed out disguised as arcade game Penguin Parade for Apple iPhones - are not designed to run on systems like Unix and Mac OS X.

Spammers are also branching out, said Sophos, to try new methods of distributing their marketingmessages and spreadingmalware, such as through social- networking sites like Facebook.

To avoid falling prey to viruses from spam e-mail messages, Mr Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, advised users to be more discerning.

"When a spam e-mail message appears to come from a trusted source, too many users are fooled and end up clicking through to a malicious webpage," he said, adding that it is important to "never open unsolicited attachments, however tempting they may appear".

The good news is that many Singapore users my paper spoke to are aware of the consequences of opening spam e-mail messages.

Mr Eric Yip, 26, who is in corporate sales, receives more than 30 unsolicited e-mail messages daily.

"I direct e-mail messages from unknown addresses to my junk-mail box, so I don't open them by accident," he said. "The possibility of getting a virus is very real, so why take the risk?"

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