By comparison, this time last year there had already been a number of big virus outbreaks, leading SoftScan to conclude that virus writers seem to be unnaturally quiet and that spam levels appear to have stabilised in recent months. The only real change has been in the goods and services the spam emails offer. At the end of January this year spam levels were slightly higher at 87.09%, but the underlying trend is approximately 85%. With no major outbreaks, the top five virus families and their proportional percentages have changed little so far this year.