Australia in top 6 spam countries world-wide?

In a new report released by AVG, Australia has been listed as the 6th largest source of spam internationally. The US tops the list (42.2%) followed by Great Britain (8.5%), Germany (5.1%), France (4.6%), Brazil (3.4%) and then Australia at 4.1% for the period of April to June 2012. 

Yuval Ben-Itzhak, AVG's chief technology officer said “It could be compromised email servers, compromised machines, that are sending spam”.

“The spammers don't want to send it from their own servers because they will be shut down immediately. So they use spam malware and it is not a malware that is necessarily trying to steal anything from you as an individual, but basically using your computer and mostly the IP address to send spam around the world."

What is the point of spam?

As innocuous as a spam email may seem, many have a sinister motive as the launch point for cyber-crime. Spam messages that purport to be from your bank, PayPal or Facebook usually invite you to click on a bogus link to try and collect your credentials in order to steal money or your identity. Based on the amount of spam we see, the spam business must be profitable.  If these activities did not produce returns, the spam companies would quickly go out of business.  As spam messages adapt and regularly introduce new techniques, this suggests that there are people working at developing and improving the spam messages in order to profit.

The spam companies are smart and technology-savvy, building tools to turn other people's computers and servers into the spam-generating machines. Spam targeting Australia often originates from other countries makes it challenging for the law enforcement of Australia to target companies and individuals in other countries who are subject to different laws.

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Analysis-based Anti-Spam - designed specifically for corporates our spam filters take a no-nonsense approach to dealing with spam or unsolicited email.  Recognising that email is a mission critical application for all modern corporates we have designed our spam filter to take control of email flowing into your organisation.

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Corporate Mail Server Reputation Management - in the event of a viral compromise your mail server/work station or a spammer gaining access to one of your email accounts, it can take only a few hours of illegitimate use of your mail server to have it listed on half a dozen blacklists, some of which it may take days to get your server removed and restore normal email service. IN the mean time, you may not be able to send email to your key customers or suppliers.

Possibly even worse is that, in the event of a viral compromise, you may be forced to contact all the associates in your corporate address book and explain to them they definitely should not open the virus laden emails apparently sent by a member or members of your organisation.

INCUB8's Mail Server Reputation Management scans your outgoing mail to detect viruses and spam messages so action can be taken quickly preventing your mail server from being blacklisted or you having to make some awkward calls to your customers and suppliers; All without losing any legitimate emails.  Read more...