Spam doubles in the last year

Ironport, a firm that makes its business tracking the world of spam, says that the volume of unwanted junk mail has doubled in the past year.

Much of this increase is down to image spam - where text is dropped in favour of a Gif containing whatever amazing stock offer or penis enlargement pills happen to be the deal of the day. Image spam is designed to circumvent text filters and often has a tagline that makes it seem like the email is from a mate - 'Hey, it's Joey', or whatever.

Junk mail now makes up 9 in every 10 email messages sent.

Image spam has quadrupled in the last six months, and the only obvious answer appears to be to block emails that have image attachments, which clearly isn't ideal. If you happen admin your own spam filter, it also appears that blocking email wholesale from a few key countries can do the trick, although this isn't exactly great for business.

Much of the spam comes from the increase in spyware. Whilst spyware has mostly stopped hosing people's machines for fun, it has started using these infected machines as spam relays. Many people think the spam problem could be cut down with better internet security for home users, which could appear with Windows Vista.

Have you been deluged in spam recently? Let us know over in the forums.