U.S. Leads 'Dirty Dozen' Spam Producing Countries
The United States is now the world's leading producer of spam according to a recent study by antivirus company Sophos.
With 18.6 percent of all spam sent between July and September, 2010, the U.S. leads what Sophos' Graham Cluley called the Dirty Dozen of spam-sending countries.
Behind the States are: India (7.6 percent), Brazil (5.7 percent), France (5.4 percent), and the UK (5 percent). Rounding out the list are Germany, Russia, South Korea, Vietnam, Italy, Romania, and Spain. (The category labeled "other" accounted for 38.5 percent of spam).
Broken down by continent, Sophos determined that Europe is responsible for dumping the most spam on the world with 33.1 percent, followed closely by Asia (30 percent), North America (22.3 percent), South America (11.5 percent), and Africa (2.3 percent).
Cluley's take home message from the statistics is to be wary of opening suspicious emails , as their spread is difficult to contain.
You should never even be tempted to open a spam message out of curiosity, as it can only take a second to effectively hand over control of your computer to the spammers, wrote Cluley in the Oct. 14 blog.
