In New Delhi: IT security and control firm Sophos, has published its latest report into the top twelve spam relaying countries, covering the first quarter of 2011.
Despite remaining at the top, the USA's proportion of the global spam output fell significantly from 18.83% to 13.7% of all spam relayed from compromised computers. The United Kingdom also saw a drop, with its spam pollution falling from 4.54% to 3.2% of total global spam relayed, the UK moving down from fifth to sixth place in the dirty dozen.
The top 12 spam relaying countries for January to March 2011 are as follows-
1
USA
13.7%
2
India
7.1%
3
Russia
6.6%
4
Brazil
6.4%
5
S Korea
3.8%
6
United Kingdom
3.2%
7
Italy
3.1%
8
France
3.1%
9
Spain
2.8%
10
Germany
2.6%
11
Romania
2.5%
12
Poland
2.3%
13
Other
42.8%
Sophos warns that the continued growth in popularity of mobile platforms and social networking means that the number of spam attack vectors is increasing and computer security still needs to be at the forefront of people's minds.
"Although the USA and UK contribution to the global spam problem has decreased in percentage terms, it is essential for organizations not to become complacent," said Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos.
"Financially-motivated criminals are controlling compromised zombie computers to not just launch spam campaigns, but also to steal identity and bank account information. Users need to be educated about the dangers of clicking on links or attachments in spam mails - and many computers may already be under the control of cybercriminals. Businesses and computer users must take a more proactive approach to spam filtering and IT security in order to avoid adding to this global problem."
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