The vendor has spent some time slicing and dicing the volumes of data accumulated during the processing of a billion email and instant messages every day through its 12 operations centers during 2005. It also interviewed 610 customers during December, quizzing them about prevailing trends and emerging concerns over the characteristics of enterprise messaging.
On highlight was the increase detected in the use of encrypted messages, Andrew Lochart of Postini said. During the 12 months of 2005, the number of inbound TLS connections increased from 225 million a month to around 360 million by December. An average of 22% of all inbound messages now arrive via TLS, the company found. Throughout last year the number of outbound TLS connections increased from less than 2% to more than 4% of all outbound messages.
As encryption becomes easier to implement, using features such as automatic TLS encryption via the mail server, and as privacy laws are more strictly enforced, so more companies will encrypt their mail, the company has concluded.
Sober was the most rampant virus during 2005. Instant message attacks escalated by 1700%, with MSN Messenger classified as most at risk. Spam volumes seem to have held steady during the last year, the company found.
