Adult spam hits all-time low - only 3%

Of all the spam filtered by Symantec's e-mail security tools in February, only 3 percent could be classified as adult spam, the company said Tuesday. Adult spam, according to Symantec, contains or refers to "products or services intended for persons above the age of 18" and is "often offensive or inappropriate. Examples: porn, personal ads, relationship advice."

The top spam categories are health care or other general product ads, which combined account for 48 percent of all junk e-mail, Symantec said. Other top spam categories include advertisements for financial services (21 percent) and Internet services (15 percent), according to the Symantec report. Of all junk messages, 8 percent was fraudulent or part of a scam such as phishing, it said.