Students Go-Back-to-School With Alarming Email Threats Waiting
MailFrontier Research Forecasts Spam and Phishing Targeted at University Students to Reach More Than 18 Billion for the Upcoming School Year

PALO ALTO, Calif.. – August 17, 2005 – MailFrontier™, the leader in email security, today announced that it expects university students in the U.S. will receive more than 18 billion spam and phishing emails this coming school year. The expected total includes more than 120 million spam and phishing emails each day targeted at university students over the course of this school year. More than 17 million students attend two-year and 4-year public and private universities in the United States, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.¹

“Universities are becoming a launching ground for email threats today and this increased risk leaves students and university networks vulnerable to attack,” said Anne Bonaparte president and CEO of MailFrontier. “In addition, overall vulnerability is magnified by the trusting attitude university students have toward the Internet. In a recent survey conducted by MailFrontier, we discovered that those in the 18-24 year old age group were the most likely to misjudge a phishing email as being legitimate, which occurred nearly 40 percent of the time. This figure is twice the rate of the one for the 55-and-over crowd. Universities need to take action to protect their students from the rising email threats.”

In the United States alone more than 6,000 universities must combat an array of email threats on a daily basis. For example, George Mason University is one such institution that has acted aggressively against pervasive spam and phishing emails by deploying MailFrontier Gateway™. George Mason has 30,000 email users experiencing an influx of spam and phishing emails, filling email inboxes to capacity and negatively impacting the university’s network processing. Last year unwanted email accounted for roughly 60 percent of the university’s 400,000 incoming email messages each day and nearly 2,500 messages a day were phish. With another school year set to begin, universities must remain a step ahead in the face of increasing email threats.

About MailFrontier
MailFrontier is the leading provider of email security solutions that protect organizations against threats such as spam and viruses, provide control for content compliance and enable consolidation of email infrastructure. The MailFrontier platform provides power without complexity. The company has more than 1,300 enterprise customers, including HealthEast Care System, Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., Pier 1 Imports, San Francisco Giants, SAP and Wyndham International. Founded in 2002, MailFrontier is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. For additional information, go to www.mailfrontier.com.

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MailFrontier and MailFrontier Gateway are trademarks of MailFrontier, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

¹ “Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2003,” National Center for Education Statistics