There remains a reluctance in Asian countries to adopt software-as-a-service (SaaS) approaches to combat digital crime, while the SaaS strategy is much more accepted in Australia, the US and Europe.

These thoughts come from MessageLabs, a major provider of integrated messaging and web security services that is expanding its presence in the Asia Pacific.

MessageLabs, now part of Symantec, sees about nine billion emails from 20,000 customers every day and makes a guarantee to stop all known, and unknown, viruses.

Speaking in Singapore, MessageLabs vice president -- SaaS Group, Asia Pacific and Japan, Bjorn Engelhardt said that in the Lion City alone, more than 90 per cent of emails are spam. Last month one in 196 emails in Singapore had viruses or malware included in them -- a phenomenal rate which has increased over the past 12 months.