India is Asia's Leading Spammer
By CXOtoday Staff
Mumbai, Oct 08, 2008 1522 hrs IST

India has been conferred the unflattering distinction of being the largest spam sender in Asia by Trend Micro as well as the 7th largest spam sender in the world. According to Trend Micro, India accounts for more than 4% of the total global spam. Asia contributes 16.57% of the global spam volume. The share of some other Asian countries is China (3.39%), Republic of Korea (2.57%) and Thailand (2.04%).

Said Niraj Kaushik, country manager (India & SAARC) of Trend Micro, "Since 2003, the volumes of spam have been growing steadily, now reaching in excess of 80% of all Internet traffic."

The rapid growth of broadband connections and the use of virus distribution by spam have created large collections of 'Zombie' machines on broadband networks sitting ready to serve the needs of the spammer. The amount of spam globally today has reached a whopping 66, 470,097.

He said, "Most spam today is to advertize 'get-rich-quick' schemes and similar dubious products. Starting off being a small irritant that most enterprises used to ignore, spam has today has taken the shape of a huge calamity. Enterprises not having a policy to curb spam will eventually see their profitability and productivity being affected."

Trend Micro reports that the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) together account for around 20% of all spam. Experts at Trend Micro further indicate that spam from emerging markets will continue to grow till the proper Internet infrastructure is in place. The world's top 10 spam relaying countries account for about 57.4% of the global spam volumes.

The most effective solution against spam is to combine a strong reputation system with a comprehensive filtering system that includes heuristics, statistical analysis, signature filters, and multi-lingual detection. Also it should be noted that newer types of spam and other malware attacks have become so rampant that the traditional batch-mode updates of signatures are unable to keep pace with them, leaving user systems vulnerable to the latest threats. The key lies in security solutions that keep user systems updated in real-time."

According to the company, an electronic message is spam if: (1) the recipient's personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients; and, (2) the recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent; and (3) the transmission and reception of the message appears to the recipient to give a disproportionate benefit to the sender.


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