Corporate Productivity Suffers As Volume of Legitimate Mail Falls During UK Heatwave Says Email Systems
In June, volumes of legitimate email being sent between Mondays and Fridays decreased significantly by up to 20% – compared to previous months, whilst the percentage of mail that was spam and virus increased by a similar margin. Both events coincided with the start of the UK heatwave around the middle of the month.
Ironically the early part of June saw the largest amount of legitimate mail on a single day for many months, with almost 14% of email that passed through the system on Thursday 2nd June being legitimate, compared to an average of just 7% for the month as a whole.
Neil Hammerton, CEO of Email Systems, commented:
“Looking back through this month’s statistics, it’s possible to draw a direct correlation between the amount of legitimate mail that was sent and the increases in temperature on an almost day-to-day basis. The reduction in legitimate emails clearly indicates that UK businesses have suffered due to the extremes of heat, suggesting perhaps that as an economy we are simply not yet able to cope with the types of summer that experts are predicting in the years to come.”
During June, viruses fell significantly from the previous month, peaking at just over 1% of email traffic at the worst point in June versus a peak of almost 9% in May due to the phenomenal propagation of the most recent variants of the Sober virus – Sober-N, Sober-O and Sober-P.
Spam emails relating to Education – ie those supposedly offering degrees or diplomas – rose by more than 150% this month, from 5% to 13% of all illegitimate mails sent. However Personal Finance related emails fell significantly during June, comprising just 9.61% of spam compared to 20.32% in May.
Emails containing details on medication remained the most prevalent type of spam mails this month, rising slightly with more than one in three mails (34% in June, 31% in May) on this subject. During June the overall monthly average for spam was 91.77% versus 89.37% in May and 91.79% in April. Spam peaked on Saturday 25th June at 98.18% of emails sent.
Email Systems manages and monitors the flow of spam and virus infected email messages on behalf of millions of corporate, public sector and domestic users across the UK. For more information, visit www.EmailSystems.com or call 0870 141 7070.
About Email Systems:
Email Systems offers a comprehensive range of best-of-breed email management and protection services that are available either individually or as a modular package for Enterprise, OEM and ISP customers. These include archiving, image scanning and encryption, in addition to core anti-spam and anti-virus services. Email Systems’ web-based solutions ensure that clients need not download or manage software on their PC or server, offering complete peace of mind with no effort required. Email Systems is continually developing technical partnerships with global market leaders, such as Commtouch, which offers unique Recurrent Pattern Detection (RPD) technology to analyse large volumes of Internet traffic in real time, protecting customers from the first seconds of a spam or virus outbreak. Email Systems has offices in the United Kingdom, France and Sweden.