Education failing to can spam

Over 60 per cent of all emails sent to the UK education community contain spam or viruses in the second half of last year according to a survey by an email provider.

Email Systems, which supplies email access for the London Grid for Learning and other educational establishments, found that last year the rise in spam and virus transmissions equaled those to commercial companies. It also logged higher levels of denial of service attacks against educational domains.

"As a sector which relies increasingly heavily on both email and the internet, the scourge of spam has now reached epidemic proportions within education," said Neil Hammerton, managing director of Email Systems.

"Organisations which do not have provision for blocking spam are not only jeopardising teaching and learning time but potentially subjecting students to extremely unsuitable material, from pornography to gambling and sales of illegal pharmaceuticals on an unprecedented scale."