When it comes to identifying sources of spam, India has moved up to second

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place having distributed 8.8 per cent of all spam globally in February, an increase of 2.7 per cent compared with the previous month, a recent study by Kaspersky Lab on ‘Spam Evolution’ said. Kaspersky Lab is one of the world’s top four leading IT security software vendors for endpoint users.

In February, the US maintained its position at the top of the table despite a decrease of 7 per cent compared to January’s figure. According to the study made available to FC, the most notable event in February’s top 20 was the decrease in the amount of spam coming from Brazil (-4.7 per cent), Russia (-2.5 per cent) and China (-1.3 per cent).

Brazil fell from second position down to ninth. The amount of spam originating from Korea and Vietnam doubled, making them third and fourth respectively (Korea +3.9 per cent and Vietnam +2.5 per cent).

Interestingly, February saw Japan, Israel, Thailand and Saudi Arabia – countries that normally account for less than 1 per cent of all spam – make it into the top 20 sources of spam. The UK occupied twelfth place, distributing 2.24 per cent of the total volume of spam.

“February’s most noticeable event was the drastic decrease in the number of malicious links coming from the .cn domain region. This was caused by a tightening of the domain name registration rules in China. Now many bulk mails advertising viagra or pornographic sites include links to domains registered in the .ru region,” the Kaspersky study said.

While spotting some of the recent trends, Kaspersky Lab said, “Links to phishing sites were found in 0.87 per cent of all emails, an increase of 0.06 per cent compared to January. Malicious files were found in 1.18 per cent of all emails, an increase of 1.11 per cent compared with the previous month.”