US still the only spam super power

By Stan Beer
Thursday, 25 October 2007 13:50

Home IT

The US is still the world's worst spam originating country by a country mile, with more than five times the spam traffic from other large spam purveying nations and poor security, according to a new report.

The report on the top 12 spam-relaying countries for the Q3 2007, from security firm Sophos, points out that while the US is capturing high-profile spammers more frequently than ever, general computer security remains worryingly lax and its spam situation is worsening.

Experts at SophosLabs scanned all spam messages received in the company's global network of spam traps, and have revealed that the US accounted for a massive 28.4% - meaning that almost one in three of all the world's spam emails is being sent through a compromised US computer. The gap between the US and its nearest rival has also increased significantly, with second placed South Korea only responsible for relaying 5.2%, or one in twenty spam messages.

Australia and New Zealand currently sit in 37th (0.4%) and 79th (0.1%) place respectively with less than 1% of the world's spam originating from the two countries.

The top twelve spam-relaying countries are as follows:

1 United States    28.4%
2 South Korea    5.2%
3 China (inc.Hong Kong)    4.9%
4 Russia    4.4%
5 Brazil    3.7%
6 France    3.6%
7 Germany    3.4%
8 Turkey    3.2%
9 Poland    2.7%
10 United Kingdom    2.4%
11 Romania    2.3%
12 Mexico    1.9%

Others 33.9%

"It seems as though a major American spammer is arrested every other week at the moment, but despite these high-profile lawbreakers being put away, the US continues to relay far more spam than any other nation on the planet," said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos. "This level of activity can't be attributed solely to the slick operations of a few cash-hungry criminals. The problem is there are thousands of spammers using many thousands of compromised zombie computers in the US. The only way we're going to reduce the problem is if US authorities invest a lot more in educating computer users of the dangers, while ensuring ISPs step up their monitoring efforts to identify these compromised machines as early as possible."

According to Sophos, while the US has risen substantially in the spam stakes, neighbouring Canada has continued to make good progress in eradicating the spam problem, further reducing its spam-relaying figure during Q3 to just 0.8%.

"The US needs to take note and learn from its northern neighbour, which is doing a sterling job of combating the spammers, thanks in no small part to the Government's Task Force on Spam," said Theriault. "Canada got its act together early, publishing its 'Anti-Spam Action Plan' in 2004, and since then has made a sustained effort to engage ISPs, businesses and consumers, to really crack down on the problem. Canadian computer users have every right to be frustrated - even though they're hardly contributing to the spam problem, they're doubtless continuing to receive a wad of unsolicited email that's being relayed south of the border."