India steals U.S. Crown
Sophos has published the latest 'Dirty Dozen' of spam relaying countries, covering the first quarter of 2012. In the space of a year, India has overtaken the United States to become the top global contributor of junk messages, being responsible for relaying one in ten spam emails. Most spam comes from home computers that have been compromised by hackers. India's rise to the top spot comes as the number of new internet users in the country is growing very rapidly, suggesting that computers in the country are not properly protected and that ISPs are not taking spam as seriously as they should. At the same time last year, the UK resided in sixth place in the table, contributing 3.2% of global spam. Since then, it has fallen off the Dirty Dozen entirely and, in terms of sheer numbers, UK spam has decreased by 47%. Overall throughput of global email spam messages has decreased since Q1 2011, partly because of better work by ISPs around the world, but also reflecting a change in tactics by cybercriminals.
Spammers are increasingly finding traditional email spam ineffective, turning to social networks to spread these kinds of marketing spam campaigns instead. Graham Cluley, Sr. Technology Consultant, Sophos said, "While traditional marketing spam may appear to be no more than an annoyance, offering pills that have questionable claims or to get you rich quick, they can often to lead to more serious threats to your personal information. The latest stats show that, as more first-time internet users get online in growing economies, they are not taking measures to block the malware infections that turn their PCs into spam-spewing zombies.”
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