Russia emerges as spam superpower

IT security and control firm Sophos has published its latest report on the top 12 spam-relaying countries over the final quarter of 2007.

Experts at SophosLabs scanned all spam messages received in the company's global network of spam traps, and have revealed a dramatic rise in the proportion of the world's spam messages being sent from compromised Russian computers.

The country has stormed into second place, accounting for 8.3% of the world's spam, or one in 12 junk mails seen in inboxes. Russia's rise is echoed in Sophos's research into which continents make the greatest contribution to the spam problem - with Asia and Europe overtaking North America.

Between October and December 2007, the USA relayed far more spam than any other country - testament to the sheer number of computers in the country that have been taken over by remote hackers.

Representing the lion's share of total spam traffic, the United States' 21% slice means that more than one in five of all the world's spam e-mails was being sent through compromised American computers.

The top 12 spam-relaying countries are as follows:

October to December 2007

1. United States 21.3%
2. Russia 8.3%
3. China (inc. Hong Kong) 4.2%
4. Brazil 4.0%
5. South Korea 3.9%
6. Turkey 3.8%
7. Italy 3.5%
8. Poland 3.4%
9. Germany 3.2%
10.= Spain 3.1%
10.= Mexico 3.1%
12. United Kingdom 2.5%
Other 35.7%

Here are the positions of other countries:

14. France 2.4%
23. Canada 0.9%
29. Netherlands 0.7%
31. Japan Asia 0.6%
34. Australia 0.4%
35. Singapore 0.4%
43. Switzerland 0.3%
46. Austria 0.2%
57. Ireland 0.2%
62. Belgium 0.1%
65. South Africa 0.1%
90. Luxembourg 0%

Responsible for a third of all unwanted e-mail, USA and Russia can be viewed as the two dirty men of the spam generation, polluting e-mail traffic with unwanted and potentially malicious messages. "It's not the case that a third of the world's spammers are based in those countries, but that legions of computers are poorly defended, allowing hackers to break in and turn them into botnets for the spreading of spam and malware," says Brett Myroff, CEO of master Sophos distributor, Netxactics.

Sophos's breakdown of spam relaying by continent is as follows:

October to December 2007

1. Asia 32.1%
2. Europe 27.1%
3. North America 26.5%
4. South America 12.5%
|5. Africa 1.1%
Other 0.7%

Falling from first to third place, North America has managed to reduce the proportion of spam it is relaying from 32.3% to 26.5%, and has been overtaken by Asia at the top of the chart, and Europe in second place.

"Financially-motivated criminals are controlling huge proportions of compromised zombie machines to launch these spam campaigns. This is big business for cyber-criminals, so the authorities have the daunting task of educating users about

the dangers of clicking on links or attachments in spam mails, while also making sure that service providers help in identifying compromised computers," Myroff says.

"This is a worldwide issue, affecting everyone who owns a computer. Businesses and computer users must take a more proactive approach to spam filtering and IT security in order to avoid adding to the problem."

Using spam to artificially inflate the price of stock is an ongoing spam trend, but October 2007 saw one of the most bizarre schemes ever, when a pump-and-dump campaign used MP3 files in an attempt to manipulate share prices.

In an effort to bypass spam filters, cyber-criminals sent out their messages with supposed music files from stars such as Elvis Presley, Fergie and Carrie Underwood, attached.

The files actually contained a monotone voice encouraging people to buy shares in a little-known company.

"Spammers will go to extraordinary lengths to try and ensure their marketing messages reach their intended pool of victims," Myroff adds.

For more information on 'Best practice advice for minimising exposure to spam', please visit: www.sophos.com/security/best-practice/.