Fifty Percent of E-mail Junk Currently Originates from Asian Countries, Reports Sophos

According to Sophos the security company, which has just published its "Dirty Dozen Report" for Q3-2011, over 50% of the global junk e-mail, during July-September 2011 i.e. Q3-2011, originated from the Asian countries.

And though USA continues to be the lone wrongdoer of worst kinds, insufficient security within Asian countries implied that plentiful botnet drones distributing spam belonged to India and South Korea. Nation states of Asia spewed 50.1% of the global spam during Q3-2011 as against 30% of the total e-mail junk, reveals Sophos in its most recent spam statistics.

The 'Dirty Dozen' amongst all spam-spewing nations for Q3-2011 holds South Korea as spewing 9.6% of the worldwide e-mail junk, second to merely USA on the list. A number of other Asian countries -Vietnam, Taiwan, Pakistan and Indonesia - are amongst the Dirty Dozen starting July-September 2010. In the meantime India, which has long been occupying a place in the list, fell to No.3 after South Korea whilst continuing to be behind relaying 8.8% of the global junk e-mail.

Indonesia is on No.8 being responsible for 3.3% of all e-mail junk, reveals Sophos.

Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluley at Sophos stated that the above numerical figures suggested that with increasing number of people using the Internet in Asia, they weren't doing adequately for safeguarding their PCs against malicious programs that aided in expanding botnets. Zdnetasia.com reported this in news on November 2, 2011.

Cluley further stated that spam that forced into users' mailboxes could include irritating advertisements down to plain malware assaults. If the situation got worse, a junk e-mail could be crafted for contaminating the victim's PC with malware alternatively for phishing him off his banking details, the expert added.

Furthermore, according to Sophos, considering the statistics which reflect the continents from where spam originates, Asia precedes Europe at the rate of 21%. And as Africa continues to be mainly technologically handicapped, it merely contributes 3% of the essential online litter. North America and South America occupy the list's middle portion, contributing 14% and 10% respectively of the malicious warnings getting dispatched from these continents, Sophos asserts in its report.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/8/2011