India tops spam for Q3 in the Dirty Dozen: Sophos

IT security and data protection vendor, Sophos, has unveiled that, according to its Dirty Dozen report for the third quarter of 2012, India has jumped to the top of the hall of shame for spam-relaying countries.

The report indicates that India is relaying 16.1 per cent of all spam captured by SophosLabs’ global network of spam traps.

Sophos notes that only 10.2 per cent of India’s population are Internet users, despite the fact that the nation accounts for 5.3 per cent of the world’s Internet users, ranking it third after China and the US.

As such, the lack of security measures taken to protect computers in the region will likely lead to further problems as more of India’s citizens get online.

“The latest Dirty Dozen report suggests that a not insignificant number of PCs in India are harbouring malware infections that turn PCs into spam-spitting zombie slave, controlled by the cybercriminals who make money by punting junk emails to promote questionable goods, or simply use malicious spam to infect more computers,” Sophos senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley, said.

The report also found that the US, which topped the table in the same period in 2011, has risen to third since the previous quarter, accounting for 6.5 per cent.

Sophos also found that the UK, which has managed to escape the top twelve for the last four quarters, has returned to the list with 2.1 per cent.

Saudi Arabia has come in as the top new entry for the quarter, relaying 5.1 per cent of spam. Sophos attributes the figure to the Festi botnet which took effect in August. Turkey and Germany are also new additions, with Pakistan, Russia, Poland, and Thailand all having dropped off the dozen.

From a global view, Asia remains the worst offending continent with 48.7 per cent. Europe comes in at second with 28.2 per cent, followed by South America (10.2 per cent), North America (9.5 per cent), and Africa (2.9 per cent), with ‘Other’ measured at 0.5 per cent.

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