Sophos' third quarter 'Dirty Dozen' report on spam relaying nations discovered that the percentage of global spam originating from India has grown in the third-quarter in a row, and now totals more than 16 percent of all junk e-mails. In the last quarter, India accounted for an 11.4 percent of the total world spam.
The report further points that spam doesn't necessarily come directly from computers based in India, but from the devices that are “ill-protected” and have been “turned into spam-relaying zombies in botnets”. Therefore, people creating these spams could belong to any country, the report added.
“The latest Dirty Dozen report suggests that a not insignificant number of PCs in India are harbouring malware infections that turn PCs into spam-spitting zombie slaves, controlled by the cybercriminals who make money by punting junk emails to promote questionable goods, or simply use malicious spam to infect more computers,” says Sophos' Graham Cluley.
“The authorities in India need to make IT security education a priority. One would be safe to assume that, if computer users in the country are being targeted in order to relay spam, they are likely victims of other online threats such as fraud.”
The Sophos report further says that about 5.3 percent of the global net users are from India, but only 10.2 percent of the population of the country has access to the Internet. Sophos believes lack of awareness about the security measures could be a possible reason for India being on top on the list of spam relaying countries. Read the full Sophos report here.
Here's the list of top 12 spam-relaying countries from July-September 2012:
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