Spam dampened the Christmas cheer for many businesses, accounting for 57 per cent of all emails received.

The findings from network management company, Ipswitch may be shocking but the company claims that things are getting better.

Although spam accounted for more than half of all emails received by UK companies, Ipswitch claimed it was down from a massive 74 per cent in August 2005.

While it’s nice to think spam is finally being defeated, it has more to do with spammers finding new methods of disruption, including instant messaging and blogging.

Spam offering mortgage, loan and financial deals was the most prevalent for the third quarter in a row, making up 21 per cent.

Porn came second with 18 per cent, followed by ‘phishing’ emails and bogus gift tokens for online stores, both on 16 per cent.

'The spammers and cyber criminals that plague the global online community are increasingly moving to other means in their goal of slowing down the information super highway, through targeting emerging technologies such as instant messaging and blogging,' explained David Karp Ipswitch's director, product marketing.