India top source of spam in 3rd quarter of 2011: Report

DUBAI: More than 50 per cent of all spam messages in the world during the third quarter of 2011 originated from just six countries, with India accounting for the highest 14.8 per cent of such messages.

According to Kaspersky Lab's spam report, India was ahead of countries like Indonesia (10.6 per cent), Brazil (9.65 per cent), Peru (6.65 per cent), South Korea (5.85 per cent) and Ukraine (3.7 per cent).

All of the countries that make up the top 10 sources of spam are situated in South America, Asia and Eastern Europe, the report said.

"This is due to the fact that there are numerous users in these countries and they are, for the most part, not very experienced when it comes to IT security. This makes them a soft target for cybercriminals spreading spam-bots," it said.

The report said that all GCC countries together accounted for only 1.33 per cent of all global spam, with Saudi Arabia leading the pack. This was attributed to the low number of users and more vigilance in protecting computers in these countries.

GCC countries are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.