Despite the country having enacted laws and sentenced numerous spammers to prison, 26% of global spam still originates from here.
“Although it is the leading country, this figure has significantly decreased from last year (42%). Clearly, anti-spam forces, authorities, and Internet service providers in North America are effectively working to gradually reduce the amount of spam this year“, affirmed Graham Cluley, a security consultant at Sophos.
While the United States sees many positive signs, the increasing broadband usage in South Korea and China has turned these two countries into attractive sources of cybercrime. The spam rate in South Korea currently stands at 20% (up from 12% in 2004), while the world’s most populous country has increased from 9% to 16%. The total amount of spam sent globally has not changed much compared to last year.
Spammers often utilize malicious software with the aim of gaining control over computers, linking them into zombie networks to send out mass messages from these systems, or for future schemes.
Broadband, combined with the use of outdated versions of the Windows operating system, is the main cause of the spam flood. Legal actions and enhanced security features of Windows XP Service Pack 2 have discouraged many spammers, but the most effective solution is for service providers to prevent users from setting up servers through “Internet port 25” – which is used to verify their systems as email servers. However, most ISPs are hesitant to block port 25, primarily because this process is relatively time-consuming and costly.
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