For the first time in recent memory, the United States is no longer among the world’s premier spam distributors. In fact, the US isn’t even in the top ten, according to a new report from Kaspersky Lab.
The U.S., once a preeminent leader in pushing out spam e-mail now only occasionally appears in the top twenty sources of spam, Kaspersky Lab expert, Maria Namestnikova, found in a survey of spam e-mail. Big changes in global spam distribution networks that followed takedowns of the Pushdo/Cutwail, Bredolab and Rustock botnets are the most likely cause, Namestnikova writes.
India, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru and Ukraine were the top producing countries in the Kaspersky survey, which ran from April through July. Together, they accounted for nearly half of the world’s spam during the period of the survey. Nearly sixty percent of global spam is produced in only ten countries, increasingly located in Asia and Latin America.
Analyses of those countries suggest that cybercriminals are diversifying their botnets across borders as insurance against botnet take-downs, even as they scramble to replace American and Western European botnets that have been disrupted in the last year.
For the full analysis and, of course, graphics, you can find the entire Securelist piece here.
