U.S. Leads ‘Dirty Dozen’ Spam-Relaying Countries in Q3

Over the third quarter, the U.S. (yet again) relayed more spam than any other nation, accounting for a massive 28.4 percent of all the world’s spam emails being sent through compromised computers, finds the latest Sophos study of the top 12 spam-relaying countries, reports MarketingCharts.

Another North American country, Mexico, book-ends the list at number 12, having relayed 1.9 percent of spam messages in Q3 (see chart of the spam “dirty dozen”), according to the study. Meanwhile, Canada has lowered its spam-relaying share to just 0.8 percent, thanks in large part to the Government’s Task Force on Spam, Sophos said.

Among the findings of the study:

• In the previous quarter, the U.S. - albeit still the top spam relayer - had accounted for 19.6 percent of spam relayed, followed by China with 8.4 percent.
• Accordingly, the gap between the U.S. and its nearest rival increased significantly from the second quarter, with now-second-place South Korea responsible for relaying just 5.2 percent of spam messages in Q3.
• Another Asian state (and the previous quarter’s runner-up), China, was third with 4.9 percent. In fact, three of the four up-and-coming “BRIC” countries occupy the third through fifth positions: Russia is fourth and Brazil is fifth; India does not make the “dirty dozen.”
• Five of the 12 are European states, ranging from fourth place France to 11th place Romania. Bridging Europe and Asia as the current occupier of Asia Minor, Turkey is in eighth place.
• The massive increase in U.S. spam relaying resulted in North America’s overtaking of Asia and Europe to become the biggest spam-relaying continent during the third quarter (see chart).
• Asia was close behind because of the large number of individual Asian nations relaying spam, while Europe managed to reduce its overall figure by 3.7 percent.

For the study, SophosLabs scans all spam messages received in its global network of spam traps.