Spam level *declines*... to 97 percent of all email

If you think you're getting a lot of spam these days, well, that's because you are. In Microsoft's latest biannual report on the state of computer security, the company says that in the second half of 2008, a full 97.3 percent of email traffic was unwanted spam (or malicious email like phishing attacks and outright viruses). Surprisingly though, that's down a bit from the first half of last year, when total spam volume reached a whopping 98.4 percent of all email sent.

The latest report (which covers security through the end of 2008, so Conficker isn't part of the package) is available for download here. (Be warned: The full report is 184 pages long. Consider checking out the smaller highlight report instead.)

The good news: Spam filters are getting better than ever. Microsoft's filter system for Exchange now scrubs out 39 out of every 40 emails sent. Spam also saw that slight decline thanks to the shut down last year of the ISP McColo, a major haven for spammers who suddenly had to go shopping elsewhere.

What are we being spammed about? Pharmacy and other product ads make up the lion's share of spam, accounting for 72.2 percent of all spam sent. Only 10 percent of the total spam share now involves sexually-oriented pharmaceuticals; that's a huge decline from previous studies, as apparently Viagra and Cialis are no longer that hard to come by.

Image-only spam, dating come-ons, financial spam, and fraudulent diplomas round out the remainder of the most common spam subjects.

Alternate statistics show the total spam level at lower -- one source pegs it at a mere 81 percent of mail traffic (a figure which seems awfully low) -- and also notes that even with the taking down of McColo and other spammer ISPs, spam traffic will inevitably rise again to "normal" levels.

In the related world of malware infections, the Microsoft report noted that worldwide, 8.6 machines were suffering from malware for every 1,000 which were clean. That sounds pretty good, but it still translates to about 9 million computers worldwide suffering from malware attacks.

What do you need to watch out for today, attack-wise? The most common attacks at the moment target Microsoft Office and PDF files, and those types of attacks are further on the rise.