So much for CAN-SPAM: by far, the United States still produces the most spam in cyberspace, accounting for a whopping 42.53 percent of all spam produced and sent, and almost 27 percent higher than the next-highest offender, South Korea (at 15.42 percent), according to online security firm Sophos.
"Almost nine months on from the CAN-SPAM legislation and the United States' attempt to clean up its act appears to have had little impact. The States is still, by far, the biggest exporter of spam in the world," said Sophos senior tech consultant Graham Cluley.
China/Hong Kong came in third on the Sophos survey at 11.62 percent, with Brazil fourth at 6.17 percent and Canada at 2.91 percent. Rounding out the top twelve spam producers were Japan (2.87), Germany (1.28), France (1.24), Spain (1.16), Britain (1.15), Mexico (0.98), and Taiwan (0.91), with unnamed others accounting for a total 11.76 percent.
Canada, in fact, cut their spam production by more than half over six months, coming down from a 6.8 percent share of the world spam volume, Cluley said, while South Korea's volume has almost tripled in the same time, especially while that country steps up as one of the world's prime broadband-connected countries.
Cluley suggested that fattening bank accounts continue motivating the spammers, and that another key factor in the continuing large volume is third party computers hit with viruses that turn them into spam conductors.
"Spammers are motivated by watching their bank accounts get fatter and fatter, and many have turned to hacking into innocent third-party computers to send their junk emails," he said. "Many of the computers sending out spam are likely to have had their broadband internet connections exploited by remote hackers. "Zombie computers - PCs which have been compromised by hackers or virus writers - are sending out approximately 40% of the world's spam, all without the apparent knowledge of the user."
