The presidential election currently dominating the media is also affecting the number of spam campaigns online, according to an industry expert.

Secure Computing released a new survey this week which revealed that both senators Barack Obama and John McCain were being taken advantage of by people who aim to cause trouble for IT support and personal users around the world with targeted malware and viruses.

"The actual election will most likely be closer than the spam frequency of Obama messages but for right now, Obama is winning the spam race," it revealed, adding that Sarah Palin was also a popular topic of importance for spam emails.

It argued an email from September 3rd regarding Barack Obama, could have been released to coincide with the Republican National Convention, highlighting the effectiveness of spammers who aim to get the maximum effect out of their misleading emails.

However, many residents in Seattle have complained over spam regarding Barack Obama - this time responding to vast quantities of legitimate emails sent by the Democratic senator's campaign.

More than half of small businesses (53 per cent) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support. London-based Connect conducted the research in 2007.