U.S. is the No. 1 spam country

• Sophos has published its latest report on the top 12 spam-spewing countries for Q4 2005.
• USA still tops the charts; but for the first time, the country accounts for less than one quarter of all spam relayed.
• Dubbed the "dirty dozen", Sophos' list of 12 countries in the period from Oct to Dec 2005 has United States in first position with 24.5 percent, China with 22.3 percent in second position, South Korea comes in third with 9.7 percent, France (5.0 percent), Canada (3.0 percent), Brazil (2.6 percent), Spain (2.5 percent), Austria (2.4 percent), Taiwan (2.1 percent), Poland (2.0 percent), Japan (2.0 percent) and Germany (1.8 percent) come in succession with other countries accounting for 20.3 percent.
• The list shows that while the amount of spam spewed by South Korean computers has fallen substantially to 9.7 percent, China has moved-up to second place with 22.3 percent spam to its credit.
• Significantly the US has led the way in imposing severe penalties and fines for spammers, helped largely by legislation including the CAN-SPAM Act plus greater information sharing by Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
• Ron O'Brien, senior security analyst, Sophos (Lynnfield), said, "Officials in the United States have cracked down considerably on spammers, by giving-out harsh sentences to those convicted - that's good news for organizations and consumers.
• That Sophos' "dirty dozen" covers countries from 4 different continents indicates that "zombie computers" - which are responsible for relaying over 60 percent of the world's spam, are capable of allowing spammers to escape country-specific legislation.
• Majority of spam is being relayed by "zombie computers" hijacked by Trojan horses, worms and viruses.
• There is also considerable increase in "pump-and-dump" stock spam, which is geared to artificially inflate stock prices before spammers sell shares at higher profit.
• As a safety measure, Sophos has advised computer users to keep their anti-virus software up-to-date, use a properly configured firewall, and install the latest operating system security patches in order to reduce the risk of their PCs becoming part of a zombie network.