Anti-spam specialist reveals the biggest exporters of junk
email
Sophos, a world leader in protecting businesses against spam and
viruses, has published its latest report into the countries from
which most spam messages originate.
Researchers scanned all spam messages received at its global
network of honeypots in the last month and have revealed the top
twelve spam producing countries. The United States remains by far
the worst offender, exporting 42.53% of all spam.
The top twelve spam producing countries are as follows:
- United States
- South Korea
- China (& Hong Kong)
- Brazil
- Canada
- Japan
- Germany
- France
- Spain
- United Kingdom
- Mexico
- Taiwan
| 42.53%
15.42%
11.62%
6.17%
2.91%
2.87%
1.28%
1.24%
1.16%
1.15%
0.98%
0.91%
|
| Others | 11.76% |
"Almost nine months on from the CAN-SPAM legislation and the
United States' attempt to clean up its act appears to have had
little impact. The States is still, by far, the biggest exporter of
spam in the world," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "Canada has made some progress,
however, cutting the percentage of the world's junk email sent from
the country by over half - from 6.8% six months ago to 2.9%
today."
Sophos notes that the most broadband-connected country in the
world, South Korea, has consolidated its position as a leading
producer of spam - almost tripling the percentage of spam
originating from its shores since February.
"Spammers are motivated by watching their bank accounts get
fatter and fatter, and many have turned to hacking into innocent
third-party computers to send their junk emails," said Cluley.
"Many of the computers sending out spam are likely to have had
their broadband internet connections exploited by remote hackers.
"Zombie computers - PCs which have been compromised by hackers or
virus writers - are sending out approximately 40% of the world's
spam, all without the apparent knowledge of the user."
Sophos urges computer users not to purchase products advertised
via spam, and to deploy a consolidated
solution at the email gateway which can protect against both
spam and viruses.
"Several measures have been suggested to tackle spam - from
charging to send email to sender authentication mechanisms - but
these alone will not solve the problem. Only a combination of
technology, international legislation, and user action will put a
stop to spam," continued Cluley.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.