US named biggest generator of spam

The United States hosts more than one-third of the websites containing malicious code and sends more spam than any other country, it was reported today.

The findings come from Sophos' Security Threat Report 2007 which in addition to predicting the threats for 2007 has highlighted the top 10 countries that host web-based malware and spawn the most spam.

America, was identified as hosting 34.2 per cent of web-based malware and was also found to be behind 22 per cent of spam, despite its efforts to reduce this activity in 2006. China came second in both instances hosting 31 per cent of web-based malware and sending 15.9 per cent of spam.

“Both the US and China have big populations which means more households are using Broadband,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

“This, coupled with the fact that users along with hosted sites in both countries have some of the most lax attitudes when it comes to taking security measures makes them the highest spreaders as many people do not even know they have viruses lurking in their PCs.”

Although the UK was ranked 19 in Sophos' chart for hosting 0.05  per cent of all websites containing malicious code and was number 10 for sending spam, Cluley still believes even in the UK there is a lot of work still needed to make Britain a safe place when it comes to phishing and spam.

“Primarily end users must ensure they protect themselves, when it comes to spam and malicious attacks,

“Just this weekend there was a flurry of virus activity generated from a spam email regarding a storm. If people were sensible and had kept their systems updated then this Trojan would not have caused the damage it did," he said.

However, Cluley also believes the public are not completely to blame when it comes to their IT security. Because the majority of spam is sent out via zombie computer Cluley believes that it will take “universal world-wide legislation” to cut down on the amount of spam.

"Currently it is down to security companies to educate the public on security, but the Government must step up and raise awareness.

"It is my dream that one day we will begin to see informative campaigns around spam and phishing – much like we do around topics such as drinking and driving," he said.

In addition to these findings the report also found that email threats will decline in 2007 and be replaced by viruses and phishing scams aimed at web content sites such as Myspace and Beebo; a similar prediction made by Websense in December 2006.