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Europe Surpasses Asia, Becomes World's Leading Producer of Spam

by Amar Toor on July 15, 2010 at 03:57 PM

fake spam emailForget its tumbling currency and stagnant labor market. Europe has another issue far more important: spam. Lots and lots of spam. According to a recently released report from security firm Sophos, the Old World has just surpassed Asia as the world's leading spam continent, accounting for more than a third of all junk e-mail sent during the second quarter of 2010. Among individual European countries, Britain was the most spam-friendly, producing 4.6-percent of the world's junk mail, while nations like Italy, France and Poland all experienced steady rises in distribution. As far as countries go, though, the U.S. still sits atop the spam throne; 15.2-percent of all second quarter spam came from the Land of the Free. India finished at a distant second, with 7.7-percent, and Brazil took the bronze, with 5.5-percent.

As the AFP reports, the order of spammiest countries may change, but the spamdemic is a problem that doesn't seem to have any obvious solution. Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley asserts, "It's an uphill struggle educating users about the dangers of clicking on links or attachments in spam mails, and that their computers may already be under the control of cybercriminals." And, with junk mail comprising a staggering 97-percent of all e-mails received by businesses, it doesn't seem like the spam express will be slowing down anytime soon. "Spam will continue to be a global problem for as long as it makes money for the spammers," Cluley admits. "It makes commercial sense for the criminals to continue if even a tiny proportion of recipients clicks on the links." Until that tiny proportion wises up, then, it looks like we'll be relegated to mindlessly pressing the delete button every time we receive an offer from a Nigerian prince. In the meantime, we might at least take some pleasure in blaming Europe for something besides techno. [From: Yahoo/AFP]

Tags: asia, Brazil, e-mail, email, europe, france, India, international, phishing, Poland, safety, security, Sophos, spam, spammers, spamming, top, uk, us, web

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