Spam now accounts for 92 per cent of all emails and is growing at a rate of 117 billion emails a day, according to a new report.
Computer security firm McAfee has described the growing onslaught of spam over the last three months as alarming.
McAfee said its research found that "June produced the highest amount of spam we have ever seen, beating the previous high month, October 2008, by more than 20 per cent".
The huge increase in spam sent to Inboxes all over the world is largely down to the massive network of 'zombie' computers that spew out the spam. The number of zombie computers - those that are hijacked - is estimated to be growing at 150,000 every day.
Twitter is also attracting the attention of spammers. McAfee's research also identified the micro-blogging network as a spam magnet. Spam accounts spread malware such as the "Mikeey" worm and new variations of the Koobface Trojan.