Tech vendors have made headway in the war on spam, yet spammers are returning volley with sheer numbers. Perhaps it's time for more drastic measures?

"The biggest reason we're not winning the war on spam has little to do with the anti-spam vendors," says Logan Harbaugh, a Test Center analyst. "It's more about the ever-increasing volume of spam."

Anti-spam email appliances work anonymously on the frontlines of IT security, blocking millions of pieces of spam (or unwanted e-mail) every day. And anti-spam vendors are doing a decent job: According to the Test Center, email appliances today catch an average of 96.1 per cent of spam, up from 95 per cent two years ago.

But vendor advancements pale in comparison to the swelling ranks of spammers. A Symantec report released this month shows that spam is on the rise. In March, more than 80 per cent of all email was spam, up from 78.5 per cent in January and February. Overall, spam volume is up 20 per cent compared to last year. The report also warns of a popular spammer trick called backscattering, which is the practice of bouncing emails around the globe until they're received.