Pitcairn Islands produce highest spam per person
By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 15:26:00 03/12/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- A person in Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific sends more spam than anyone else, according to a Sophos report. But chances are that person is not even aware about it.
Pitcairn leads likewise obscure South Pacific island-territories in Sophos’ list of Top 10 countries based on spam produced per person.
Next to Pitcairn Islands are Niue, Tokelau, Anguilla, The Faroe Island, Monaco, Bermuda, Falkland Islands, Andorra and Aruba.
Overall, however, the United States, Russia and China -- countries with much larger populations -- are the top spam-relaying countries, according to Sophos. These three countries accounted for 33 percent of all spam detected in the fourth quarter of 2007.
“Between October and December last year, the US relayed far more spam than any other country due to the sheer number of computers that had been taken over by remote hackers,” according to Sophos
“But when measuring spam emitted per capita, the results are very different,” said Carole Theriault, Sophos senior security consultant.
Theriault added: “Most of the countries in this chart have very small populations compared to the usual offenders, but their totals are sky high when it comes to spam emitted on a per-person basis.”
In short, people in these islands are unknowingly sending spam courtesy of hackers that take control of their PCs.
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