The 2014 FIFA World Cup may be over, but there’s another championship of sorts to keep one’s eye on: the latest installment of SophosLabs’ Spampionship charts.
The findings revealed that, as always, the US tops the "by volume" charts, simply because it has a large population and the bulk of the world's internet infrastructure. But it came in twelfth in the per-capita charts.
Meanwhile Belarus, which in 2013 was the per capita spam frontrunner with a spam rate ranging from four times to nearly 30 times that of the US, has ceded its dubious crown to Bulgaria. Both countries have spam rates at about twice the US figure.
In a massive surge, Switzerland has come from way behind (having been no higher than 20th in the previous three quarters) to place third. Luxembourg has held onto its fourth spot, for the third time in the past year.
Last quarter's most prolific smaller countries were the Bahamas and Macau; but they've dropped out of the charts this time, letting Iceland back in for the second time in a year. And the only Southeast Asian country in the per-capita rankings is Taiwan, down to 11th after spending the back end of 2013 in third position.
As interesting as it is to see which country is responsible for the most spam, Sophos noted that the vast majority of spam is sent unsuspectingly from computers infected with malware that turns them into zombies within a botnet, usually controlled by criminals in an entirely different part of the world. That makes it difficult to track, and opens the door to bigger issues.
The firm pointed out that spambots are not only concerning for the fact that one’s computer is being used to spread fraud, phishing and malware schemes, but also for the fact that the malware that turns machines into zombies can also be used for other nefarious purposes.
“Imagine, for a moment, that your computer is infected to the point that unknown cybercriminals from the other side of the world can order it to start sending spam at will,” said Paul Ducklin, Sophos researcher, in a blog. “Now stop to think what else those crooks might be asking your computer to do.”
Top issues include logging keystrokes to steal online usernames and passwords, searching through files for interesting data to download, posting "recommendations" for friends on social networks, downloading ransomware that scrambles data and demands an unlock fee, and acting as a proxy, or relay, for criminals who are charging rent to other crooks to use the zombie internet connection for their own purposes.
“Just as the soccer World Cup reminds us that football is the ‘World Game,’ because it's played so keenly in so many countries, we hope the Spampionship Tables are a reminder that spam is a global problem that affects us all,” Ducklin said.