In response to one of your classmates questions about why certain countries produced more malware and spam than other countries I thought it would be useful to lay the groundwork for that discussion with some facts. In 2007, PandaLabs provided the following breakdown on Malware Friendly Countries.
Additionally, Spamhaus provides the following current breakdown of Spam producing countries.
| The 10 Worst Spam Origin Countries | As at 30 March 2009 | ||
| Rank | Country | Number of Current Known Spam Issues | |
1 | United States | 1548 | |
2 | China | 482 | |
3 | Russian Federation | 314 | |
4 | United Kingdom | 233 | |
5 | South Korea | 213 | |
6 | India | 165 | |
7 | Japan | 158 | |
8 | Brazil | 148 | |
9 | Germany | 136 | |
10 | France | 120 | |
Why are certain countries more prone to malware and spam production? Are the reason solely technical? Do cultural and legal factors play a role?
When considering these questions it is useful to analyze the breakdown of Internet users worldwide. Internetworldstats.com currently supplies some useful statistics that illustrate Internet usage around the world.
1 comment:
One would assume that the countries more prone to malware and spam production would be the countries with the most internet usage and the countries where internet technologies are developed. This holds true for the United States, which is the second highest malware friendly country and is the worst spam origin. Yet Japan, a heavily technological country, is not high on either list. This leads me to conclude that technology is not the only factor that impacts the production of malware and spam. I think that culture and laws play a large part in the production, although it certainly would not be possible without the proper technology. China's internet is still censored by the government, which may lead to more hackers producing malicious software in response to the government's control. China, the US and Russia all have a large number of highly advanced hackers with the ability to create malware. The United States has very outdated laws on internet privacy, which contributes to the high percentage of malware and spam because of the low risks involved. A combination of technological, cultural and legal factors are the reasons why a country would be a high producer of malware or spam.
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