Latest 'dirty dozen' spam producing countries.

Sophos, 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:

 1. United States           42.53%
 2. South Korea             15.42%
 3. China (Hong Kong)       11.62%
 4. Brazil                   6.17%
 5. Canada                   2.91%
 6. Japan                    2.87%
 7. Germany                  1.28%
 8. France                   1.24%
 9. Spain                    1.16%
10. United Kingdom           1.15%
11. Mexico                   0.98%
12. Taiwan                   0.91%
Others                      11.76%

Comment:

The States is still, by far, the biggest exporter of spam in the world, '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." The most broadband-connected country in the world, South Korea, has consolidated its position as a leading producer of spam--almost triplmg 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 tlnrd-party computers to send their junk emails,' "Many of the computers sending out spam are likely to have had their broadband intemet 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.

www.sophos.com