China Leads In Spamming Operations

The trend of unwanted e-mail is turning to the East with China moving ahead of the U.S. as the originator of most Irish inbox invasion. Studies of November 2006 show that over 55% of e-mails intended for Irish e-mail users are 'Spam'.

According to a recent research from security company 'Sophos', more spam is being distributed from Asia than any other continent. Sophos' 'global spam monitoring network' received 42.8% of Spam from Asia while North America relayed 25.6% of spam.

E-mails infected by virus rose slightly by 11%. October 2006 had entry of two new viruses, W32/Warezo and W32/Tricky-Malware, both of which scattered quickly. These new viruses control a PC and let it to be accessed distantly, with the probability of exploiting the PC to circulate spam mails.

Earlier statistics indicated that U.S. was the originator of 26% of spam. However, the rate in that country is now declining. This is due to spammers based in U.S. off shoring their operations to stay away from tough U.S. anti-spam laws, said Phelim O'Connel, managing director with IE Internet. China is growing as an originator of spam and last month it accounted for 25% of overall spam rate.

The sudden emergence of China as the king of spam is due to multiple reasons. The most important one relate to Western governments' attitude towards spamming. They have acquired the political strength to begin lashing out their own backyards' spamming operations.

Secondly, servers choose China to host the spammers' websites and for buying and selling zombies or computers intentionally infected with spam-enabling viruses. Moreover, China by its advanced telecom infrastructure is providing all the technology spammers require.

The future is discouraging for it offers little prospect for improvement. According to the observation of Steve Linford, president of 'Spamhaus', most telecom companies in China such as 'China Telecom' don't care to know because they are government-owned and the government is not putting any pressure. Meanwhile, spam volumes and number of spammers in China is increasing day by day. This means spamming operations in China will remain bulletproof for the advantage of spammers.

Related article: China’s Best Initiatives To Deal With Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 12/6/2006