U.S. Named Top Spammer

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Security software vendor Sophos' "Dirty Dozen" list is one list for which there is little competition for the top spot. In Q2, the United States once again topped the list of spam-relaying countries, with India and UK, not far behind. eSecurity Planet reports.

The U.S. once again topped the list of spam-relaying countries in the second quarter, according to security software vendor Sophos' latest "Dirty Dozen" report. But European countries including the UK, France and Germany are doing their fair share of inbox polluting, too.

Between April and June, U.S. spam output accounted for 15.2 percent of the world's unwanted emails, more than double the output of second-place India at 7.7 percent. Rounding out the top five were Brazil (5.5 percent), the UK (4.6 percent and up dramatically from ninth place in the first quarter) and South Korea (4.2 percent).

The increased production of and trafficking of spam from individual European countries is reflected in overall output by continent. Europe hurdled Asia this quarter for the first time, accounting for 35 percent of output compared to 30.9 percent from Asia and 18.9 percent from North America.

In its report, Sophos warns that these new variants of spam are more malicious than ever, not just advertising cheap pharmaceuticals but spreading innocuous-looking links to websites that can infect computers and smartphones.

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