# Non-profit sector 'highly vulnerable' to e-mail virus attack

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2003/04/23/nonprofit-sector-039highly-vulnerable039-email-virus-attack/
- Published: 2003-04-23T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

MessageLabs, the e-mail security company, reports that the non-profit sector is

highly vulnerable to virus attack.
The company’s latest report published today reveals
that 1 in 204 e-mails received by non-profit sector organisations in 2003 contains
a virus. It confirms that virus levels have “increased massively” over the past 
3 years. To make matters worse, one in every 84 e-mails received in the non-profit
sector is spam and unwanted.

Putting this in context, MessageLabs say that “the non-profit sector is attacked
by more e-mail viruses than many other sectors in the UK”. Yet there is a huge disparity
in the threat posed by viruses to different sectors of the UK economy. The Leisure
industry is in the most danger, so far in 2003 receiving 1 virus in every 72 emails.
The Retail sector fares slightly better, with only one virus in every 110 emails
received, while Chemical and Pharmaceutical firms show that they are least at risk
with the lowest virus to email ratio of only 1:612.

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While the number of spam e-mails received by non-profits is “one of the worst ratios
in the UK”, spare a thought for utility companies for whom one in five e-mails is
unwanted spam. Across all sectors the ratio of spam to legitimate mail has increased
significantly in the last year, jumping from 1:11 in 2002, to just 1:6 in 2003.

Paul Wood, MessageLabs’ Chief Information Analyst, said: “As the non-profit sector
comes to rely more and more on the Internet for communication purposes, to store
data and records, and carry out research, it is not surprising that the threat from
viruses has reached such a high level. It is particularly important that organisations
in the Non-Profit Sector are adequately protected against virus attacks, not least
because of the potentially confidential and sensitive nature of the information 
involved.”

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