Efforts to curb the flood of unwanted emails, or spam, have lost momentum in the US, according to a report released on Monday.
A survey of international sources of spam, conducted by UK internet security firm Sophos, shows that the US still leads the world. It is the source of 23.2% of global spam between April and June in 2006.
The US had been making steady progress in reducing spam since the passage of a 2003 law dubbed CAN-SPAM, which introduced stiffer penalties for spammers. This progress now appears to have stalled.
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鈥淯S spam has declined every quarter since the inception of CAN-SPAM, until now,鈥� says Ron O鈥橞rien, a senior security analyst with Sophos. 鈥淒espite the increase in arrests and significant monetary penalties, it鈥檚 clear that the US has more work to do.鈥�
Zombie infestation
Most spam is relayed via personal computers that have been infected by a virus and are remotely controlled by spammers, Sophos says. These 鈥渮ombie鈥� machines typically send out junk messages without the knowledge of their owners.
O鈥橞rien says attention should now focus on preventing computers from being turned into spam zombies in the first place. 鈥淭he US must now intensify its efforts to educate computer users on preventive security measures to curb the infestation of zombie computers,鈥� he says,
Other countries are also struggling to control spam, according to the same report. China accounted for 20% of spam over the same period and South Korea was responsible for 7.5%. Overall, the continent of Asia produced more than 40% of worldwide spam.
Pump-and-dump
Other countries in the top 10 include France (5.2%), Spain (4.8%), Poland (3.6%), Brazil (3.1%), Italy (3.0%), Germany (2.5%), Britain (1.8%), Taiwan (1.7%) and Japan (1.6%).
An increasingly common type of spam involves so-called 鈥減ump-and-dump鈥� schemes. Emails advertise a financial stock in order to drive up its price, so that it can be sold for a quick profit (see Crime pays for 鈥榮tock spammers鈥�). This now accounts for 15% of all spam, Sophos says.
