The USA is the worst country in the world for relaying spam, according to Sophos’ latest report on spam. The US was responsible for 13.1%, followed by Brazil and India at 7.3% and 6.8% respectively, with the UK, Russia and Italy tied in 7th place. In a further twist, China has completely disappeared from the top 12 and now relays only about 1.9%.
The full hall of shame is below.
| 1. USA | 13.1% |
| 2. India | 7.3% |
| 3. Brazil | 6.8% |
| 4. S Korea | 4.8% |
| 5. Vietnam | 3.4% |
| 6. Germany | 3.2% |
| 7=. United Kingdom | 3.1% |
| 7=. Russia | 3.1% |
| 7=. Italy | 3.1% |
| 10. France | 3.0% |
| 11. Romania | 2.5% |
| 12. Poland | 2.4% |
| Others | 47.3% |
Given the amount of attention that China receives as the “Country of Cybercrime”, the table shows that US and Europe ought to be looking a bit closer to home when it comes to spam.
Sophos estimates that 97% of email received to business servers is actually spam and only 3% is legitimate email. Frankly that’s a both scary and a disgrace. The level of resources needed to cope and the subsequent cost incurred by business shows that spam ought to be much higher up on the agenda of our lawmakers.
Perhaps they could take a break from the usual “digital rights” arguments and do something that would help everyone. That would get my vote.