US the world's top recipient of spam e-mail

The United States is the largest global source of unsolicited e-mail ads, known as spam, producing more than two of every five messages, a report by security firm Sophos showed Tuesday.

The Sophos report found 42.53 percent of all spam originated in the US. The next largest source was South Korea, with 15.42 percent, and China and Hong Kong, accounting for a combined 11.62 percent.

The report suggested that a US law known as CAN-SPAM that took effect in January has done little to curb the flood on unwanted messages that some see as a threat to the Internet.

Chris Kraft, senior security analyst at Sophos, said the results showed little overall change from a similar survey in February for the United States.

"Six months and millions of spam messages later, it is quite evident that the CAN-SPAM legislation has made very little headway in damming the flood of spam," he said. "If nine months isn't long enough to make a significant difference, how long is?"

The "dirty dozen" spam sources, according to Sophos, included Brazil, accounting for 6.17 percent of global spam, followed by Canada (2.19 percent); Japan (2.87 percent); Germany (1.28 percent); France (1.24 percent); Spain (1.16 percent), Britain (1.15 percent); Mexico (0.98 percent); and Taiwan (0.91 percent).

Sophos notes that the most broadband-connected country in the world, South Korea, has consolidated its position as a leading producer of spam -- almost tripling the percentage of spam originating from its shores since February.

However, Canada has managed to significantly decrease their contribution to the junk e-mail by more than half -- from 6.8 percent six months ago to 2.9 percent.

"It's of no surprise that spammers are motivated by one thing -- quick, easy money," Kraft said.

"There are plenty of spammers who have taken their money making schemes to the extreme by hacking into innocent third-party computers in an effort to do their dirty work. Many of the computers sending out spam are most likely to have had their broadband internet connections exploited by remote hackers."

Sophos noted that "zombie" computers -- which have been compromised by hackers or virus writers -- are sending out approximately 40 percent of the world's spam, mostly without the knowledge of the PC owners.