The good news is that the number of spam messages worldwide has dropped since 2011

Apr 23, 2012 13:25 GMT  ·  By

SophosLabs released the quarter 1 report for 2012 that names the first twelve spam sources in the world. The list is topped by India, the country overtaking the United States, which has been the number one source of spam until now.

The efforts Internet Service Providers have put into the fight against spam have paid off, the overall number of spam messages decreasing since the first quarter of 2011.

The study reveals that 9.3% of spam is relayed through India, the second position being occupied by the United States with 8.3%.

South Korea, Indonesia, Russia, Italy, Brazil, Poland, Pakistan, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Peru are also considered to be important sources for unsolicited messages.

However, this doesn’t mean that the cybercriminals that launch spam campaigns reside in these countries. The individuals that run these operations might have taken over computers from the aforementioned places, turning them into spam-sending zombies.