The United States is still the country where the most number of spams originate, almost 42 per cent, says a report by security solutions company Sophos.
Researchers at Sophos scanned all spam messages received at its global network of ‘honeypots’ – a system developed by network security firms to track illegal activities on the Internet - throughout 2004. The top of the list was the United States, which was responsible for exporting 42.11 per cent of all spam.
South Korea followed with 13.43 per cent of spam originations, China with 8.44, Canada with 5.71, Brazil with 3.34, Japan with 2.57 and France with 1.37 percent. Other counties in the top twelve were Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Taiwan and Mexico.
Sophos report said: “When we first reported on the top spamming countries back in February 2004, the USA had the excuse that the Can-Spam Act had been in existence for a couple of months. Almost a year and millions of spam messages later, it is quite evident that that the CAN-SPAM legislation has made very little impact stopping spam.”
Sophos notes that the most broadband-connected country in the world, South Korea, has held tightly onto its position as a leading producer of spam.
Sophos report said: “Spammers are motivated by one thing - quick, easy money, there are plenty of spammers who have taken their money-making schemes to the extreme by hacking into innocent third-party computers in an effort to do their dirty work.”
Sophos recommended that users should avoid purchasing anything that is advertised via spam, and to deploy a ‘consolidated solution’ at the email gateway, which can protect against both spam and viruses.
