Australia - Fourth Most Spammed Country in the World

According to Symantec's "May 2009 MessageLabs Intelligence Report", Australia ranks fourth among the countries receiving the maximum number of spam, accounting for a high 31% growth in the total spam over the past 12 months starting from May 2008.

The country presently has spam level at 89.7% as against its May 2008 level of 68.2%.

The report MessageLabs says that the level of viruses in Australia was stood at 1 in 602.8 e-mails. According to the security company, geographic factors play an important role in determining the hour of day when a region is spammed, as people located in the Asia-Pacific countries find their inboxes clogged with spam during the morning followed by fewer and fewer spam messages as the day rolls on.

Besides, spam level in Hong Kong increased to a rate of 92.3% during May 2009, making it the region receiving the maximum number of spam. In the UK, spam level dropped to 90.3%, while in the USA and Canada it grew to 86.6% and 85.2% respectively. Germany's spam level climbed to 84.4% and Holland's to 82.4%, while spam level in China and Japan was at 91.1% and 88.5% separately.

Brazil saw a rise in virus activity to one in 163.7 e-mails, making it the country with the most viruses during May 2009. Virus level in the UK rose to one in 199.8, in Canada to one in 262.1 and in the USA to one in 473.4. Germany's virus level climbed to one in 228.9 and Holland's to one in 766, while in China, virus rate reached one in 198.3 and in Japan it was one in 1,852.

Security experts at MessageLabs further seem to expose a common misunderstanding among people that criminals in cyber space are more inclined towards exploiting less known sites such as those having porn to conceal their malware. However, the report says that most of the website domains (84.6%), restricted during May 2009 for hosting malware, were legitimate domains that were over 12 months old.

Finally, Paul Wood, Senior Analyst at Symantec, states with the constant increase in spam level, the existing techniques of attack merge together into one, as reported by ITWire on May 27, 2009.

Related article: Australian Blogger Uses Spam To Boost Blog

» SPAMfighter News - 6/1/2009