When it comes to spam, India shines on the top

MUMBAI, INDIA: It is a distinction that would not make anyone proud of. But it is a reality that no one can deny too. According to a study conducted by Trend Micro Incorporated, an Internet content security firm, India tops the list of spam sending countries in Asia, accounting for more than 4 per cent of the total global spam.

While China (3.39 pr cent) comes second, Republic of Korea (2.57 per cent) and Thailand (2.04 per cent) are the other leading countries in the list of Asian spammers.

Asia contributes 16.57 per cent of the global spam volume, said a press release from Trend Micro Inc. At a global level, India is the seventh largest spam sender.

While Russian Federation is the global leader in spam with 11 per cent of total d spam, USA comes second with 9.36 per cent, the release added.

Top ten spam relaying countries: Russian Federation, United States, Brazil, Turkey, Columbia, Argentina, India, China, Spain, Republic of Korea. These countries account for about 57.4 per cent of the global spam volumes.

According to Trend Micro, the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia India and China) together account for around 20 per cent of all spam. Spam from emerging markets will continue to grow till the proper Internet infrastructure is in place, the study added.

“Since 2003, the volumes of spam have been growing steadily, now reaching in excess of 80 per cent of all Internet traffic,” said Niraj Kaushik, country manager – India and SAARC, Trend Micro. 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 said. Most spam today is to advertise ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes and similar dubious products.

“The most effective solutions against spam combine a strong reputation system with a comprehensive filtering system,” said Kaushik, adding that products like Trend Micro’s Worry-Free Security Solutions provide multi-layer spam protection by blocking spam ‘in-the-cloud’ itself before it reaches corporate networks.