US - World Leader in Maximum Number of Bot-infected PCs

According to McAfee's Threat Report for Q1 2009 that was released publicly on May 5, 2009, the US continues to be the home for the highest number of bot-infected PCs, accounting for 18% of the total zombie PCs.

Following the US is China, hosting 13.4% of all bot-infected PCs. Collectively, the two nations (the United States and China) host 20% of all new bot-infected zombies detected during Q1 2009.

Security researchers have commented that both the US and China have been pushing to occupy the top position for past sometime, but the country taking the lead is always the US.

Moreover, after the United States and China, No.3 position is occupied by Australia. The percentage of bot-infected PCs accounted for just 4.1% during Q4 2008, a rate that increased by over 2% during Q1 2009, leading to the contribution of 6.3% in terms of new bots identified. This implies that malicious online activities, such as malware distribution and spam, have risen enormously in Australia.

Additionally, Germany and the United Kingdom are on No.4 and No.5 positions respectively, accounting for 5.3% and 4.7% of all bot infections, according to McAfee. Meanwhile, after the UK, Brazil, placed on the sixth slot, was responsible for 4.0% of all new zombie PCs identified during Q1 2009.

Interestingly, India too is a member of McAfee's list, entering for the first time and occupying the seventh spot with 3.1% of all infections. The reason why this country has made to the Top Ten is that its spam increased twice in volume from the earlier quarter (Q4 2008).

Moreover, spam output in India accounted for almost 7% of the worldwide spam during Q1 2009, primarily due to the increasing number of zombie PCs in the country. The researchers say that spam is probably the new industry trying to outsource its business to India.

Other countries among the Top Ten threat relaying nations are Spain with 3.0% infections, South Korea with 2.8% and Russia with 2.5%.

The researchers state that countries being in the list of Top Ten for malicious activities show that botnets are expanding fast and threatening for more spam.

Related article: US Passes Baton to Asia in Spam Relay

» SPAMfighter News - 5/16/2009