Spam is an IT shop's worst nightmare: A new survey finds that about one in six consumers have acted on a spam message at some point during their work careers.

The survey was sponsored by the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), an industry-wide security think tank composed of service providers and network operators. The survey queried 800 consumers in the United States and Canada about their computer security practice habits as well as their awareness of current security issues.

Plenty acknowledged they opened a spam message because they were interested in the purported product being advertised or they wanted to see what would happen if they opened the message. If this a growing issue, staffers may be unintentionally allowing malware into your system out of curiosity or lack of training about the dangers of opening spam.

For more on this survey:
- check out this Computerworld.com article

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