AntiSpam Africa on Sunday recorded a 300 percent increase in local spam levels, and these levels were maintained throughout the day.

AntiSpam Africa attributes this to a large number of SA PCs being infected with Trojan horses, and potentially part of a nationwide bot network, sending spam via local enterprise and corporate domain servers.

Traditionally SA receives spam from various international sources, making the new threat unique, as local domains are the source.

Many local organizations are currently experiencing maximum bandwidth utilization, compared to average levels of 5 percent capacity seen on an average Sunday.

This means that Monday, most corporate servers were expected to experience difficulty in managing regular volumes of e-mail, in addition to increased spam levels.

"We are currently liaising with local ISPs regarding the impact that this spam outbreak will have on local bandwidth, to confirm the manner in which this will affect SA businesses," says Phillip Arnold, GM of AntiSpam Africa.

To analyze this spam for common features, AntiSpam Africa has selected various servers where Symantec Brightmail is used to scan incoming e-mail and has quarantined the spam, as opposed to deleting it, which is common practice.

Initial analysis of the spam seen in this outbreak indicates that it has German content. The mail may be written in German or in English, with a German reference.

"AntiSpam Africa will continue to work with Symantec to track this outbreak," concludes Arnold.