US leads world in spam relaying and malware hosting

AV FIRM Sophos said a threat survey has revealed that during 2006 the United States was responsible for over a third of websites containing malicious code.

It also heads the top 10 countries relaying spam in 2006, Sophos claimed.

The second biggest culprit in both categories is China, said Sophos. The firm also claimed that 90 per cent of spam delivered is relayed by so-called "zombie computers", that is machines taken over by trojan horses, worms and viruses under hacker control.

The lists are as follows:

Top 10 hosting web malware
1. US (34.2%)
2. China (31.0%)
3. Russia (9.5%)
4. Netherlands (4.7%)
5. Ukraine (3.2%)
6. France (1.8%)
7. Taiwan (1.7%)
8. Germany (1.5%)
9. Hong Kong (1.0%)
10. Korea (0.9%)
Others 10.5%

Top 12 Spam Relayers
1. US (22%)
2. China (15.9%)
3. South Korea (7.4%)
4. France (5.4%)
5. Spain (5.1%)
6. Poland (4.5%)
7. Brazil (3.5%)
8. Italy (3.2%)
9. Germany (3%)
10. UK (1.9%)
11. Russia (1.8%)
11. Taiwan 1.8%)
Others 24.4%

Sophos reckons 30% of malware is written in China, mostly using Trojans, while 17% of Chinese malware is aimed at stealing passwords from online gamers. Brazilian malware authors use sleazeware intended to steal information from online banks. µ