Emerging countries to take spam lead

The majority of the world's spam continued to be sent from the US during the second quarter of 2008 but experts predict it won’t be long till developing nations take the lead.

According to Secure Computing’s Q2 internet threat report, as internet infrastructures improves and grows in emerging countries, spam volumes from those countries are expected to also increase.

At the moment, the US continues to send more than twice as much spam as the next largest contributor, Russia which was closely followed by Turkey at around 6.5 percent.

Combined, China and India sent 6.5 percent of spam in Q2 but that figure is expected to grow, the report predicts.

Meanwhile, according to the report, spam is up 280 percent from this time last year; it peaked in March, but since then it has steadily decreased.

However according to Eric Krieger, country manager, ANZ with the Olympics here this will change.

“Spammers are using pop-culture for their campaigns, with the Olympics we’re definitely seeing a growth trend,” said Krieger.

“They’re smart people and can make money out of it,” he added.

Male enhancement continues to be the most dominant spam message followed by product replica spam and prescription spam, the report found.