More spam in July than during all of last year

Anybody still unconvinced about the scale of the spam epidemic should consider this fact: MessageLabs intercepted more spam in the last month than in the whole of 2002.

While this is in part proof that filtering is more widely used, it is also an indication as to just how much spam is being sent and received each day. According to MessageLabs spam accounted for 50 per cent of all email again during July.

MessageLabs' anti-spam service scanned more than 156.6 million emails during July. Of those 79.7 million were identified as spam and intercepted.

MessageLabs, in its monthly report, also reported the interception of 1.7 million viruses throughout July - equal to one in 166 emails. Worst offending sectors for the distribution of viruses were leisure and sports and entertainment were around one in 70 emails sent is a virus - perhaps a reflection of the more relaxed attitudes in such sectors.

The threat-savvy IT sector however is far more secure with just one virus in every 223.4 emails. Other areas where virus writers are enjoying little impact include legal (one in 520.8) and accounting (one in 1,384.6).