The US sends more spam than any other country in the world by a considerable margin, with France and China a distant second and third.
A report by security company Sophos, which tracks the locations of computers that send spam emails filling inboxes globally, reveals that the UK does not rank in the top 12 “spam-relaying” countries in the world.
“The vast majority of spam is sent unsuspectingly from computers infected with malware, so that if you aren't careful, you may end up being part of the problem,” said Paul Ducklin, security expert for Sophos, in a blog post.
The US sent 24.2% of the world’s spam in the past three months, with France sending just 6.7%, China 6.2% and Italy 5.2%, according to the company’s data.
Bulgaria in on the act too
The US’s large population skews the overall picture of global spam. When broken down into spam message per person – normalised against the US as the number one spammer – Bulgaria tops the list for countries with populations over 300,000, relegating the US to 12th position.
“Simplifying greatly, the average computer in a country that weighs in at two times the spam-per-person of the US probably has about twice the chance of being infected with malware,” explained Ducklin. “Similarly, if computers in your country are, on average, twice as well protected (and your users twice as cautious) as in the US, you'd expect to show up with a spam-per-person rate of 0.5 times the US figure.”
Computers infected with viruses capable of forcing them to send spam without their user’s knowledge are also likely to be stealing user data, logging passwords, hacking other’s computers and websites as well as posting on your social networks, Ducklin warned.
To avoid your computer falling victim to infection by viruses and becoming part of the spam problem, security experts recommend avoiding clicking on links within emails, not opening attachments unless you trust the person sending them, to keep your software up to date and to run at least some basic anti-virus software, of which there are many freely available.
• How to protect yourself from phishing
