Spam: India leads world in junk emails whilst UK drops off

A REPORT by security firm Sophos has revealed that India is the top spamming nation. The firm ranks nations by the amount of junk routed through computers, country by country. India has raced right to first place, overtaking the US.

About 10% of all junk mail sent across the web came from or passed through computers in India, said the firm.

India’s rapid rise up the chart of spam producers has been helped by the rapid growth of the web in the country, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

The inexperience of the many first-time net users in India had led many to fall victim to hi-tech criminals, he said.

“The latest stats show that, as more first-time internet users get online in growing economies, they are not taking measures to block the malware infections that turn their PCs into spam-spewing zombies,” he added.

At the same time last year, the UK resided in sixth place in the table, contributing 3.2% of global spam. Since then, it has fallen off the Dirty Dozen entirely and, in terms of sheer numbers, UK spam has decreased by 47%.

The top 12 spam-relaying countries for January to March 2012 are as follows:

1.   India                         9.3%

2.   USA                           8.3%

3.   South Korea                   5.7%

4.   Indonesia tied with Russia    5.0%

5.   Italy                         4.9%

6.   Brazil                        4.3%

7.   Poland                        3.9%

8.   Pakistan                      3.3%

9.   Vietnam                       3.2%

10.  Taiwan                        2.9%

11.  Peru                          2.5%

12.  Other                         41.7%