India becomes world's top spammer-tumblr

http://jadenhudson.tumblr.com/post/27162764209/south-springhill-korea-group-india-becomes-worlds-top


If you’ve got a junk email folder full of spam, there’s nearly a 10 percent

chance it came from a computer in India, the world’s new top spam producer.
India claimed the unwanted crown from the U.S. in the security firm Sophos’

most recent “Dirty Dozen” report of the top spamming countries between

January and March. Rounding out the infamous top five are South Korea, which

accounts for 8.3 percent of spam, and Indonesia and Russia, both of which

distribute 5 percent of the spam clogging up inboxes.
Trailing Russia are Italy (4.9 percent ), Brazil (4.3 percent), Poland (3.9

percent), Pakistan (3.3 percent), Vietnam (3.2 percent), Taiwan (2.9 percent)

and Peru (2.5 percent).
[The 10 Biggest Online Security Myths — And How to Avoid Them]
According to Sophos’ chief technical officer Graham Cluley, the computers in

these high-spamming countries might be sending out their junk messages

without the complicity of the computers’ actual owners.
“The vast majority of spam comes from home computers that have been

compromised by hackers, and commandeered into a botnet,” Cluley explained.
Botnets, short for “robot networks,” function like automated zombie armies;

infected with a malicious piece of software that puts them under the control of

a remote operator, they carry out the orders of the command-and-control

server — including sending mass amounts of spam emails — all without the

computer owner’s knowledge.
Cluley said total spam output has actually decreased since the same time period

last year. He credited this decline to cybercriminals switching up their

approach; they are crafting more targeted email scams, and taking advantage of

the massive popularity of social networks like Facebook and, more recently,

Pinterest, to do the scam-spreading work for them.
Fortunately, whatever country you’re in, you can download anti-virus software

that can help prevent these spam-spewing armies from enlisting your computer

to carry out their evil deeds.