For regular internet users, email spam is not an uncommon occurrence. Some of it is fairly harmless, and some of it contains malicious links or attachments, but it's safe to say that all spam is annoying. But did you know that these annoying, junky messages account for all but 8 percent of emails?
A recent report by security firm Symantec claims that as of July 2010, 92 percent of all email is spam. Symantec's spam and phishing trends study recorded a 3 percent rise in spam, up from 89 percent, compared to last year's statistics.
It's not all bad news, though. The good news is that aside from being irritating, spam is slowly becoming less malicious. InformationWeek cites Symantec's study in reporting that spam containing phishing attempts has declined by 5 percent from June to July of 2010. Further, the number of unique spam sites is declining. Symantec says the number of unique phishing websites -- created by automatic attack toolkits -- decreased by 60 percent from June to July. However, unique URLs used in phishing scams increased by 10 percent, and non-English phishing sites have grown by 15 percent from June to July.
Finally, Symantec's report showed the trending topics for spammers and scammers this year. While last year's leading topics were Barack Obama and Michael Jackson, some of this year's more prevalent spam headlines have been the World Cup and the BP oil spill.
How much spam do you get on a daily basis? Let us know in the comments below!
