BANGALORE, INDIA: India is the 7th largest spam sender in the world, according to Trend Micro Inc., a global leader in Internet content security. India is the leader among Asian countries in spam, accounting for more than 4 percent of the total global spam. It is ahead of other Asian countries such as China (3.39 percent), Republic of Korea (2.57 percent) and Thailand (2.04 percent). Asia contributes 16.57 percent of the global spam volume.

According to Trend Micro, an electronic message is spam if:

(1) The recipient's personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients;
(2) The recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent; and
(3) The transmission and reception of the message appears to the recipient to give a disproportionate benefit to the sender.

Niraj Kaushik, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Trend Micro, said: "In simple terms, spam is the unwanted e-mail messages dropping into your mail box. Since 2003, the volumes of spam have been growing steadily, now reaching in excess of 80 percent of all Internet traffic. The rapid growth of broadband connections and the use of virus distribution by spam have created large collections of 'Zombie' machines on broadband networks sitting ready to serve the needs of the spammer (creating large volumes of spam mail from previously unknown systems). The amount of spam globally today has reached a whopping 66,470,097."

He further adds: "Most spam today is to advertize 'get-rich-quick' schemes and similar dubious products. Starting off being a small irritant that most enterprises used to ignore, spam has today has taken the shape of a huge calamity. Enterprises not having a policy to curb spam will eventually see their profitability and productivity being affected."

Globally, the Russian Federation heads the list of spammers accounting for more than 11 percent of total spam, followed by the United States of America at 9.36 percent. Trend Micro reports that the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia India and China) together account for around 20 percent of all spam. Experts at Trend Micro further indicate that spam from emerging markets will continue to grow till the proper Internet infrastructure is in place. The world's top 10 spam relaying countries account for about 57.4 percent of the global spam volumes.

Elaborating on how to effectively fight spam, Kaushik added: "The most effective solutions against spam combine a strong reputation system with a comprehensive filtering system that includes heuristics, statistical analysis, signature filters, and multi-lingual detection. We must also note that newer types of spam and other malware attacks have become so rampant that the traditional batch-mode updates of signatures are unable to keep pace with them, leaving user systems vulnerable to the latest threats. The key lies in security solutions that keep user systems updated in real-time. For example, Trend Micro's Worry-Free Security Solutions provides multi-layer spam protection by blocking spam 'in-the-cloud' itself before it reaches corporate networks."

The top 10 spam relaying countries are as follows:

Country            % of worldwide spam
1. Russian Federation       11.92
2. United States                 9.36
3. Brazil                              7.48
4. Turkey                            5.43
5. Columbia                        5.34
6. Argentina                       4.96
7. India                             4.26
8. China                             3.39
9. Spain                             2.69
10. Rep. of Korea               2.57