The security firm has released its "dirty dozen" report for December 2012 – February 2013

Mar 5, 2013 13:38 GMT  ·  By

According to Sophos’ spam report for December 2012 – February 2013, the United States is the world’s leading spam-relaying country, responsible for 18.3% of all the spam.

Back in October, the US occupied the third position with only 6.5%. At the time, India was the leader with 16.1%, but now India has dropped to the third place with only 4.2%.

The second place is occupied by China with 8.2 %. The rest of the “dirty dozen” are Peru (4%); France, South Korea and Italy (3.4%); Taiwan and Russia (2.9%); Spain (2.9%); Germany (2.7%) and Iran (2.6%).

The top spam-relaying continents are Asia (36.6%), Europe (27.5%), North America (22%), and South America (10.9%). Africa is responsible for only 2.6% of the world’s spam.

It’s worth noting that these results don’t mean that most of the spammers are located in the United States. Instead, it means that most of the computers compromised by cybercriminals and abused to send out spam are located here.