Commercial and financial spam has overtaken the volume of pornographic spam in circulation.
According Trend Micro's research from the first quarter of 2004, five per cent of email recipients are hooked by an average 37.5 phishing scams per day.
Phishing is an identity theft emailing technique that attempts to steal personal data by purporting to be from legitimate sources.
Research from non-profit organistaion the Anti-Phishing Working Group reported that the main phishing target industry was financial services. There were 1125 phishing attacks in April, and the average number of attacks was per day 37.5. Citibank was attacked 475 times.
According to Taiwanese research, nearly 200,000 of Taiwan's online banking customers have had their data stolen at some point.
Approximately one in 20 unlucky individuals are tricked into revealing personal data including passwords, credit card numbers and bank account information, said the firm.