A recent study carried out by IT security firm, SoftScan, has shown that levels of spam fell in January of this year following the highest spam rate recorded so far in December.

The amount of spam sent in January fell compared to December’s figure, although computer users have been warned that this could be, "the calm before the storm."

A new report published by IT security provider SoftScan found that spam dropped back to account for 96.8 per cent of all emails scanned during the first month of this year, but that this is probably, "a lull before the next surge of spam." In December, the highest spam rate to date was registered (97.02 per cent).

SoftScan chief technology officer Diego d’Ambra said: "There is nothing to indicate that this reduction in spamming activity is long term.”

"Either the spammers are content with the data they have collected so far and don’t see the need for sending large waves of spam or they are busy working on new tactics. Although we don’t expect to see a return to December’s levels just yet, I’m sure it will only be a matter of months."

In January, the top five types of virus were phishing (84.88 per cent), dropper (7.02 per cent), agent (1.39 per cent), trojan-small (1.24 per cent), and netsky (0.86 per cent).

The term ‘spam’ is believed to have derived from a Monty Python sketch, set in a cafe where virtually all the items on the menu included the canned meat.

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