UK web users are the most likely to be targeted by fraudulent spam emails from Nigeria, according to a survey by McAfee.

UK surfers receive nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of the global total of such emails.

The emails usually promise the recipient financial rewards in return for bank account details or a small amount of money.

The most popular type of spam for the UK related to advertisements.

Globally, the most widely received spam was financial – either phishing emails or offers of loans and mortgages – which accounted for 24 per cent of spam worldwide and 16 per cent in the UK.

The survey was conducted using 50 volunteers monitoring their email across 10 countries for 30 days.

A large proportion of the users saw a decrease in the performance of their computers after they opened spam, suggesting malware was being installed.

“I think we can see from the experiment that spam is undeniably linked to cybercrime. However, it is such an immense problem and it will never go away. It is no longer a question of ‘solving’ it, but one of ‘managing’ it,” said Dave De Walt, chief executive of McAfee.

About 90 per cent of emails sent globally are spam.