(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Business security services firm MessageLabs (www.messagelabs.com) announced on Wednesday it has unveiled a list of the top US spammed states, with Idaho leading the rest of the nation.
With 93.8 percent of spam, Idaho greatly exceeds the global spam rate for September 2009 of 86.4 percent, says the firm.
Idaho has moved ahead 43 spots since 2008 when it was ranked the 44th most spammed state.
According to MessageLabs, this discrepancy can be attributed to the “resilient and aggressive botnet market as well as a higher volume of global spam that has ensued since the beginning of the credit crisis toward the end of 2008.”
There are currently between four million and six million computers around the world that have been compromised to form the large botnets responsible for the majority of spam.
Cybercriminals use these botnets to send out more than 87 percent of all spam which works out to about 151 billion emails a day.
Rounding out the top 10 most spammed states is Kentucky in second, followed by New Jersey, Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Massachussetts, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Maryland.
“Some of the high spam levels seen across the US can be attributed to the economic challenges experienced globally since the end of 2008 as well as Internet advancement including the high adoption of social networking,” says Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst at Symantec. “Spammers have taken full advantage of both the economic uncertainty of some and the trustworthiness of others for their own rewards. Automated tools, resilient botnets and targeted spam campaigns are all part of the spammers’ toolkit and they are constantly evolving these techniques to outsmart any effort to stop them. No state is immune to the affects of spam.”
US territory Puerto Rico had just 83.1 percent of spam, making it one of these least spammed states. Other states that had the least amount of spam included Montana, Alaska, Kansas, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Florida.
