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Spam celebrated its 30th anniversary on Saturday (May 3rd).

The first reported mass email was sent to 350 people on May 3rd 1978 by Gary Thuerk to advertise a new system his company was pioneering. Even then, users greeted the email with criticism and distrust.

Today, it is estimated that 120 billion junk emails are sent every day, often resulting in internet users’ inboxes quickly filling up.

Spam was originally referred to as flooding, until an administrator of an internet chat system bestowed it with its new nickname. The term spam is thought to refer to the Monty Python sketch where a waiter reveals there is little on the menu but the processed and canned meat.

The European Union’s internal marketing commission estimated in 2001 that spam cost internet users €10 billion (approximately £7.87 billion) a year globally.

However, spam is not just annoying but could also install malware or result in financial data being stolen, Gary Cluley, a senior technology consultant, at Sophos told the BBC.

‘Spam is a burden on all of us’ he said.

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Hacking has become an increasingly professional operation, as cyber crime becomes ever more lucrative, a leading security expert has said.

Joe Telafici, vice president of operations for McAfee’s Avert Labs, told the BBC that there had been a clear trend in the last year towards malware designed to make money.

Instead of the debilitating effect of a shutdown or the irritant-style spam which might slow down a PC, Mr Telafici says attacks have become more focussed on theft.

“2007 was a fairly interesting year,” he commented, adding that an “eco-system” surrounding the solicitation of money from unsuspecting users had sprung up.

As well as criminals using the tools to try to scam money from users, security threats are being commercialised and offered on the open market, with those without the expertise to perform hacks now able to operate applications which do it for them.

The advent of new web-based applications such as social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, which include a welter of personal data and opportunities for illicit access, has further muddied the waters for security analysts.

The sites, which soared in popularity in 2007, are expected to be a target for hackers this year.

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Trojan malware has been found to be controlling Google ad space by sending users to different websites when they try to click on the search engine’s advertisements.

Romanian-based online security firm BitDefender found the hidden software, Trojan.Qhost.WU, and said that the threat could have a negative impact on both users and businesses.

Attila-Mihaly Balazs, a BitDefender virus analyst, said that users are prone to clicking on links or ads that “may contain malicious code”, while he said webmasters are affected because their valuable ad space is stolen by a third-party vendor and are used to promote someone else’s website.

An anonymous hacker who told siliconrepublic.com about how the malware could be operating said “most anti-virus” programs should pick up on the problem if “if an attempt was made to modify the host file anyway”.

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Apple’s much anticipated iPhone will go on sale in Britain tonight (November 9th) and sales will begin just after 18:00 GMT at 1,300 Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores - both on the high street and online.

Comprising a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod and an internet device, complete with multi-touch interface, the iPhone is bound to be a big hit, according to Apple. Costing £269, each iPhone comes with 8 GB of storage and will work with either a Mac or PC.

Each customer will be allowed to buy up to two iPhones on a first-come, first-served basis.

‘We can’t wait for our customers to get their hands on the iPhone this Friday night,’ said Ron Johnson, Apple’s retail vice president.

From February, third parties would be allowed to develop applications for the iPhone, although work still has to be done to tackle the problem of malware, viruses and privacy attacks, according to Apple.

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Many businesses are less prepared than they think when it comes to using Web 2.0 technologies, a new survey has suggested.

While almost 97 per cent of companies polled by Forrester Research for Secure Computing said they believed themselves to be ready for internet threats, more than two-thirds admitted to needing to do more.

And when asked how regularly they fall foul of malware attacks, 79 per cent of respondents said they did so frequently.

‘The need to keep inappropriate content at bay, reduce non-business bandwidth consumption and limit exposure to internet threats gave rise to the industry of web filtering,’ the report stated.

It added: ‘The need for more effective web protection has never been greater.’

Earlier this week, Antti Ohrling, founder of mobile firm Blyk, told the MediaGuardian Changing Advertising Summit that experts were wrong to assume that Web 2.0 could enjoy the same level of success on mobile phones as it has done on the traditional internet, the Guardian reports.

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