Asia the new breeding ground for spam

The spam numbers coming out from Asia are pointing to a seismic shift in the spam landscape. Recent studies conclude that about two-thirds of all spam servers are located in Taiwan. The list of worst spam origin nations prepared by Spamhaus, an international spam tracking organization ranks China as second behind US. Japan and Taiwan occupy the third and fifth spot respectively in this list. Korea holds the seventh spot and Hong Kong ranks 10th in this list.

Five of the top ten spam origin countries are Asian which is suggestive of a radical shift in the global spam origin trends. The reason why Korea ranks in this list can be attributed to its state-of-the-art infrastructure for Internet. Korea boasts of having world's best penetration rate in broadband connections. It is estimated that about four in every five homes have Internet connection.

Asia is the leader when it comes to spam relay also. A study done by Sophos, during the first quarter of 2006 shows Asia leading the pack of spam relaying continents with a whopping 42.8 per cent of all spam relayed and is way ahead of North America and Europe who account for 25.6 and 25 per cent respectively. The gap between US and second placed China is narrowing at a fast pace.

The crackdown of spammers in the west has in some way contributed to the mushrooming growth of spam activities in Asia especially in China. China happens to be the location of choice for servers hosting spammer's websites and for trading spam zombies. The advanced telecom infrastructure and availability of advanced technology also spur the growth of spam in Asian countries. More bandwidth at cheaper rates and 'bullet proof hosting', where providers are willing to ignore complaints to protect spammer's interests have all contributed to the growth of spam.

The fact remains that in many of the Asian countries the spammers can do what they want without any obstacles.

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» SPAMfighter News - 6/10/2006