Ireland and U.K. are Fundamental Originators of Spam Mails

As per research from 'IE Internet', PCs placed on 'broadband networks' in Ireland and the U.K. has come up as the major origin of spam mails. Although the number of viruses attacking Irish inboxes has declined, yet spam continues to grow. The study revealed that the rate of virus infection in mails after filtering dropped to 11.65 percent in September 2006 reversing the rising effect seen in August when the infection increased to 15.15 percent.

Spam comprising half of e-mails sent to Irish users has occurred for the fourth time in 2006. September recorded the spam rate at 53.2%, which was a 10% increase compared to September 2005. This indicates the growing effectiveness and popularity of 'botnet' technology to deliver spam mails.
Ken O'Driscoll, 'Chief Technology Officer' with 'IE Internet' says that the time required to detect and shut down botnet is too long to prevent delivery of spam. 'Botnet' mechanism is cheap and profitable for spammers to use. They are expendable and the total expenditure includes only the amount paid to the owner of the 'botnets'. The owners of the infected PCs and their ISPs make up for the hardware and bandwidth that the spammers use.

In spamming operations, the 'Mytob' virus leads by infecting 40.52 percent of e-mail. 'Zafi.B' is in the second position and 'Netsky.P' in the third. Mr. O'Driscoll noted that these viruses have been rolling for sometime now.

This implies that the virus racket comes from the older systems with insufficient protection like lack of anti-virus software or updated patches. In addition, the users' unawareness of the existing vulnerabilities also contributes to it. According to O'Driscoll, the viruses that 'IE Internet' blocks originate from home computers.

United States was the main source of spam, responsible for delivering 44%, with Korea at second and China at third place.

O'Driscoll asserts that education is the best weapon to fight spam. Mere use of legislation or technology to address the problem is not enough. People are still buying products that are advertised in spam mails. Legislating against spammers simply makes them put an additional anonymous cover to their business using innocent users to operate their spamming activities unknowingly.

Related article: Ireland Spam Touches Peak in October 2007

» SPAMfighter News - 10/18/2006