Spam continued at alarmingly high levels in 2010 despite the dismantling of botnets such as Mariposa or Bredolad, which prevented these zombie computers from sending spam. In 2009, around 95% of all e-mail traffic globally was spam. In 2010, the figure dropped to an average of 85%, with about 50% of all spam being sent from just 20 countries.
Pharmaceuticals continued to be the most popular subject of junk mail, followed by messages promoting fake designer products. Phishing messages designed to obtain online bank details and the like, as well as other fraud-oriented traffic increased as a percentage of the total.
2010 also saw some major new innovations in spam, including campaigns exploiting new ruses designed to infect users. Such was the case with an e-mail designed to look like a message from the iTunes Store, perfectly imitating official communications from the store.