Biggest spam culprits
News on 25 Jul 2012
News on 25 Jul 2012
According to IT data and security firm Sophos’ latest edition of its “Dirty Dozen” spamming report, one in every two spam messages originated from Asia in the second quarter of 2012.
North America continued to reduce the proportion of spam it relayed by email, while Asia increased its output and is now responsible for relaying 49.7 percent of all spam captured in SophosLabs’s global spam traps, the report said.
Despite only 5.3 percent of the world’s internet users reportedly living in India (according to internet world stats), the country topped the list by a significant margin and was accountable for 11.4 percent of the world’s spam throughout April, May and June.
The UK stayed out of the top twelve spam-relaying countries, as it has for the last four consecutive quarters, having last appeared in April – June 2011.
According to the report, the top twelve spam-relaying countries for April to June 2012 are:
1) India 11.4 percent
2) Italy 7.0 percent
3) South Korea 6.7 percent
4) USA 6.2 percent
5) Vietnam 5.8 percent
6) Brazil 4.4 percent
7) Pakistan 3.7 percent
8) China 3.2 percent
9) France 3.1 percent
10) Russia 2.9 percent
11) Poland 2.7 percent
12) Taiwan 2.6 percent
Other 40.3 percent
Top spam relaying continents for April-June 2012 are as follows:
1) Asia 49.7 percent
2) Europe 26.4 percent
3) South America 11.2 percent
4) North America 8.6 percent
5) Africa 3.6 percent
Other 0.5 percent
According to Graham Cluley, senior tech consultant at Sophos, for every important corporate communication, there is one that is unwanted or unsolicited.
“The chief driver for Asia’s dominance in the spam charts is the sheer number of compromised computers in the continent,” explained Cluley, “Malicious hackers hijack poorly-protected computers, and command them – without their owners realising – to send out unwanted money-making messages and malicious links.”
