IT managers seem confident that they have a grip on spam, but are increasingly worried about how spyware will affect their organisations, according to a newly published survey.

The poll of over 100 US IT managers found that four out of five were more concerned about spyware compared to this time last year, and 45 per cent were less worried about spam than they were last year.

Overall nearly three quarters of those questioned were spending more time on security than last year.

"Spam is understood and there are solutions in place to control it," one respondent said.

But the sharp increase in the volume and sophistication of spyware was deemed especially worrying for many companies.

"We have seen some new forms of spyware within the past two to three weeks," said another respondent. "We are looking at it differently now, rather than just a nuisance."

Spyware was the chief concern for IT managers, but 59 per cent also identified phishing attacks as a growing threat. Concern over hacking was viewed as less of an issue, with only one in five IT managers rating it as a growing problem.

The survey was conducted for information security firm Secure Computing by TheInfoPro.