SCI/TECH: Study Names "Axis of Spam" Nations

Junk mail host nations named and shamed
Five countries are hosting the overwhelming majority - a staggering 99.68 per cent - of spammer websites, according to a study out yesterday.
Most spam that arrives in email boxes contains a URL to a website within an email, to allow users to buy spamvertised products online. While 49 countries around the world are hosting spammer websites, unethical hosting firms overwhelmingly operate from just a few global hotspots. Anti-spam vendors Commtouch reckons 73.58 per cent of the websites referenced within spam sent last month were hosted in China, a 4.5 per cent decrease from May. South Korea (10.91 per cent), the United States (9.47 per cent), the Russian Federation (3.5 per cent) and Brazil (2.23 per cent) made up the remainder of the "Axis of Spam".

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In the month of June, Commtouch detected that spam was sent from 167 countries, up from the previous month in which 160 countries were sending spam. The United States continues to lead as the main origin of spam, with nearly 55.69% of all spam being sent from the U.S. Asia is the second continent after North America, having been the origination point for over 20% of spam. The volume of spam email originated primarily from the following countries:

1. United States 55.69%
2. South Korea 10.23%
3. China 6.60%
4. Brazil 3.35%
5. Canada 3.08%
6. Hong Kong 3.03%
7. Japan 2.46%
8. Spain 1.80%
9. France 1.23%
10. United Kingdom 1.20%

The volume of spam originating from the US cable giant's network has dropped by more than a third, after an email loophole was blocked.

Cable giant Comcast on Thursday said the volume of spam originating from its network has dropped 35 percent since it blocked an email loophole weeks ago. The new data comes after Comcast, the nation's largest broadband service, earlier this month began blocking a gateway that spammers commonly use to send mass volumes of unsolicited email. Called "port 25," the gateway lets PCs send and receive email based on SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), the most common technology for exchanging messages.