According to a report by Commtouch, global spam levels hit an all time high of 95% of all emails sent during the third quarter of this year. Image spam has decreased in favor of new types of spam like PDF and audio. Not surprisingly, ads for online pharmacies and penis enlargement products were the most popular. 30% of all spam sent during this last quarter was for online pharmacies, 23% for the penis enlargement products.

The report also talks about the disturbing trend of messages that pretend to be innocent but in fact contain links to malicious websites. Another new trend is that of spam promising fun software like video games. Users who fell for it wound up with a computer full of malware. What's more disturbing is that most anti-spam and anti-virus software can't block such messages, so it's up to the user to be extra careful. My suggestion is to let your mouse hover over the link and write the address down, (or if it's an attachment, write the file name down) and plug it into Google. Chances are that if it's at all malicious you'll find a reference to it there.

Spammers are getting more and more creative. They've come a long way from the days of plain text "Get Rich Quick!" messages plastered on newsgroups. Now they get their messages across in a variety of high tech ways, from MP3's to Bluetooth messaging. The best way to protect yourself is to use your common sense and guard your email address and other personal info very carefully!