As per the reports of Sophos, the USA continues to be the number one spam polluter, piping out 15.2% of all global spam messages. The UK also saw a significant rise in the proportion of spam it relayed. With a total output of 4.6% of the world's spam, this puts the UK in fourth place overall compared with ninth earlier this year.
Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant, Sophos said, "Financially-motivated criminals are controlling compromised zombie computers to not just launch spam campaigns, but also to steal identity and bank account information. It's an uphill struggle educating users about the dangers of clicking on links or attachments in spam mails, and that their computers may already be under the control of cybercriminals. Businesses and computer users must take a more proactive approach to spam filtering and IT security in order to avoid adding to this global problem."
Europe has leapfrogged over Asia to become the most prolific continent for spamming. Although the USA continues to be the top spam-relaying country, North America remains in third place by continent, a long way behind Asia and Europe.
Sophos recommends that companies automatically update their corporate virus protection, and run a consolidated solution at their email and web gateways to defend against spam and viruses.
