Kev
06-17-2006, 08:29 AM
British home computers are being swamped by a torrent of up to 68 million spam emails every day, according to figures.
A quarter of PCs get at least 10 unwanted messages from unknown senders.
And worringly, over 41% of the emails are advertising medications and pills. (These are the ones I get, plus Rolex watch offers)
The survey was carried out by utilities comparison website uSwitch.com and revealed that mortgage ads are the second most common type of unsolicited email at 11%.
Dubious emails containing adult content make up just over 9% and financial scams follow at 8.5%.
Home computers are 10 times more vulnerable to viruses than machines in the workplace, researchers found.
And more than one in 10 users open the unwanted messages, putting their computers at risk of viruses.
Chris Williams, broadband product manager at uSwitch.com, warned: "Spam has been a problem ever since the internet became available to the general public in the late '80s but, as we've become an online nation, spam is an epidemic with potentially damaging consequences."
A quarter of PCs get at least 10 unwanted messages from unknown senders.
And worringly, over 41% of the emails are advertising medications and pills. (These are the ones I get, plus Rolex watch offers)
The survey was carried out by utilities comparison website uSwitch.com and revealed that mortgage ads are the second most common type of unsolicited email at 11%.
Dubious emails containing adult content make up just over 9% and financial scams follow at 8.5%.
Home computers are 10 times more vulnerable to viruses than machines in the workplace, researchers found.
And more than one in 10 users open the unwanted messages, putting their computers at risk of viruses.
Chris Williams, broadband product manager at uSwitch.com, warned: "Spam has been a problem ever since the internet became available to the general public in the late '80s but, as we've become an online nation, spam is an epidemic with potentially damaging consequences."