US leads world in spam relaying and malware
hosting
90% of spam relayed from zombies
By INQUIRER staff: Monday 22 January 2007, 15:03
AV FIRM Sophos said a threat survey has revealed that during 2006
the United States was responsible for over a third of websites
containing malicious code.
It also heads the top 10 countries relaying spam in 2006, Sophos
claimed.
The second biggest culprit in both categories is China, said
Sophos. The firm also claimed that 90 per cent of spam delivered is
relayed by so-called "zombie computers", that is machines taken
over by trojan horses, worms and viruses under hacker
control.
The lists are as follows:
Top 10 hosting web malware
1. US (34.2%)
2. China (31.0%)
3. Russia (9.5%)
4. Netherlands (4.7%)
5. Ukraine (3.2%)
6. France (1.8%)
7. Taiwan (1.7%)
8. Germany (1.5%)
9. Hong Kong (1.0%)
10. Korea (0.9%)
Others 10.5%
Top 12 Spam Relayers
1. US (22%)
2. China (15.9%)
3. South Korea (7.4%)
4. France (5.4%)
5. Spain (5.1%)
6. Poland (4.5%)
7. Brazil (3.5%)
8. Italy (3.2%)
9. Germany (3%)
10. UK (1.9%)
11. Russia (1.8%)
11. Taiwan 1.8%)
Others 24.4%
Sophos reckons 30% of malware is written in China, mostly using
Trojans, while 17% of Chinese malware is aimed at stealing
passwords from online gamers. Brazilian malware authors use
sleazeware intended to steal information from online
banks.
