Asia dominates global spam league

Sunday, 12 February 2012

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More than one third of the world’s spam originates from Asia, with India, South Korea and Vietnam in the top-five worst offending countries. However, spam coming from China has dramatically reduced, according to a Sophos report.

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Why is Asia such a big spam region? Sophos Asia Pacific Head of Technology Paul Ducklin (pictured), told FutureGov: “Asia has a massive population and a number of developing economies in which there is rapid expansion in internet bandwidth combined with an ever-falling cost in getting online. With lots of new users still in the ‘honeymoon period’ of their relationship with the web, poor security practices and high ‘zombification’ rates are hardly surprising.”

Ducklin said that while public servants were probably better protected than the average home user, the risk of exposure to spam increases as more civil servants take their work home with them.

“Governments in Asia need to stop computers becoming zombified. While laws can be passed that curb this, it is almost impossible to regulate changes in PC users’ behaviour. Users have to be informed how to implement changes for themselves,” he said.

“It’s not just developing economies at risk in this region. I estimate there are about 80,000 zombies in Australia at any one time. I suspect that the majority of these infections could have been prevented easily, probably with a free anti-virus program.”

Asia’s top spam-relaying countries (% of the world’s spam):

India (7.3) South Korea (4.8) Vietnam (3.4) China (1.9) Thailand (1.44) Indonesia (1.29) Taiwan (1.26) The Philippines (0.91) Japan (0.77) Australia (0.69) Malaysia (0.65) Singapore (0.55)