News 

The US still heads up the list of the world's heaviest spammers, with 35.7 per cent of spam being sent from there, but this is down 12 per cent in the first quarter of 2005 as legislation such as the CAN-SPAM act takes effect, and suits brought by top US ISPs against spammers take their toll.

However, the problem may be increasingly difficult to crack as spammers are forced further underground and turn to virus writers to create armies of infected 'zombie' computers through which their spam is sent.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos,

ADVERTISEMENT

said: 'Last month, Sophos reported that more than 50 per cent of the world's spam came from zombie computers ... Businesses and computer users must protect themselves from becoming a zombie by having up-to-date anti-virus software, firewalls and Microsoft security patches.'

The second most prolific spamming country is South Korea. With a densely packed population, it is a nation enjoying the world's biggest bandwidths, with home connections of 8mbps not unusual.

The full list is as follows (ranked by per cent):

1. United States 35.70
2. South Korea 24.98
3. China (incl Hong Kong) 9.71
4. France 3.19
5. Spain 2.74
6. Canada 2.68
7. Japan 2.10
8. Brazil 1.95
9. United Kingdom 1.57
10. Germany 1.23
11. Australia 1.22
12. Poland 1.20

Others 11.73