Spam levels reach record high

Emails posing as YouTube videos are responsible for the rise

Spam levels reached 92 per cent of all email traffic in August

August was a record month for spam thanks to fake links to social networking site YouTube, according to one security company.

Ninety-two per cent of all emails stopped by software vendor Softscan in August was spam and levels peaked at 96.9 per cent on one particular day.

Video clips are increasingly replacing pdf and other document spam, says the firm.

'With no evidence that the increase is likely to abate anytime soon, we believe this trend of exceptionally high spam levels is likely to continue and that September will see even higher levels of spam,' said SoftScan chief technology officer Diego d'Ambra.

Unsolicited email levels are still rising. Softscan predicts incidents will go up by another 40 per cent during September .

Virus levels by contrast have fallen to record lows, accounting for just 0.28 per cent of emails stopped by SoftScan during August.