How E-mail addresses attract spam shouldn't be news to IT and security administrators, but company workers often need reminders. In that vein, FrontBridge, an E-mail protection vendor, released its top 10 list of ways spammers find people.

Based on its evaluation of hundreds of millions of messages, FrontBridge distilled the characteristics of filtered spam to identify how spammers obtain, or in some cases, guess, E-mail addresses.

* Put an E-mail address on a high-traffic Web site

* Post (or reply to a post) on UseNet

* Post (or reply to a post) on a public Web-based discussion group

* Register the address with a Web site that goes out of business and sells its list

* Register the address with a Web site that sells its list

* Subscribe to a porn site with the address

* Reply to an opt-out E-mail or click on an opt-out link in a message

* Use an address with a common name that can be easily guessed (such as bob@company.com)

* Register a domain name

* Post an E-mail address in a chat room

Reminding employees of these bad habits, said FrontBridge, will reduce the risk of having workers inundated by spam.