Rejected Mail Makes China "top Of The Bots"

[Peaches]

Doubling Of Rejected Mail Makes China 'Top Of The Bots'

A breakdown of rejected emails by IT security specialist iCritical in Q4 2008 highlights a sharp drop in U.S. spam following the closure of the McColo ISP, and a worrying increase from the Far East, especially China

Feb 06, 2009 | 05:59 PM

By iCritical

DarkReading

06 February 2009 " A massive increase in spam originating from China and the Far East could mark the beginning of a worrying trend that will create more problems for organisations already struggling to cope with unwanted emails. The rise could potentially outweigh any lasting gains from more sophisticated detection and enforcement efforts in the US and Europe which recently saw a reduction of spam following the shutdown of McColo, the California-based internet service provider, last November.

Latest figures from UK security specialist iCritical show that mail from Chinese IP addresses rejected by the company's servers before reaching client accounts more than doubled from 10.4 million in November 2008 to 22.9 million in December. In the same period, mail from Vietnam rose 62% from 2.9 million to 4.7 million and from South Korea nearly 26% from 6.2 million to 7.8 million.

Illegitimate mail originating in the other five highest spam-producing countries " US, UK, Russia, Brazil and Turkey " all fell significantly in the fourth quarter of 2008. According to iCritical, total spam levels from all eight countries fell from a height of 137.5 million in October to 72.3 million in December, suggesting that the closure of McColo and the prolific botnets it hosted has had a greater effect than some had predicted.

Full story at DarkReading: http://www.darkreading.com/security/antivi...ction=Antivirus