Could this mean an end to spam emails?

Emails offering cheap wives, Viagra, Nigerian princes and fake Louis Vuitton handbags still proliferate but, believe it or not, they are at an all-time low.

Security firm Symantec reports that spam emails have fallen to their lowest numbers in 12 years (although they might want to take a look at my over-crowed inbox!).

Less than half the emails filtered by Symantec last month contained spam, which is the lowest figure since 2003.

Ben Nahorney, cyber security threat analyst for Symantec, says, “According to our metrics, the overall spam rate has dropped to 49.7 percent. ‘This is the first time this rate has fallen below 50 percent of email for over a decade. The last time Symantec recorded a similar spam rate was clear back in September of 2003”.

But it’s not all great news. As spam email goes the way of the VCR (please God!), there has been a sharp increase in more sophisticated web threats, such as malware, malicious programmes that are downloaded on to people’s computers without their knowledge in order to steal data and extort money.

Hackers use malicious programmes to build networks of computers they can take control of in order to do things such as send spam messages, or launch attacks aimed at crashing websites.

There were 57.6 million pieces of malware discovered during last month, up from 44.9 million in May and nearly double the 29 million uncovered in April.

‘This increase in activity lends more evidence to the idea that, with the continued drops in email-based malicious activity, attackers are simply moving to other areas of the threat landscape,” says Mr Nahorney.

Does spam drive you crazy? Would you be happy to see the back of it?