Canada keeps lid on spam
The Americans remain the kings of spam with the Chinese close behind, say security experts at Sophos, but Canada continues to be conspicuous by its absence from the ranks of top spamming countries.
Sophos' list of the top 12 spam-relaying countries, called "the Dirty Dozen," released Monday, shows that Canada has one again not appeared on the list, which is issued four times a year. That puts the Canadian contribution to spam at less than 1.6 per cent.
The Americans continue to exercise their capitalist instincts using junk e-mail, producing 23.2 per cent of the world's spam. China comes in right behind at 20 per cent.
The vast majority of spam is relayed by "zombies," also known as botnet computers, which have been hijacked by Trojan horses, worms and viruses. Once the hackers take control of infected computers, cyber criminals can use them to blast out spam messages.
