Big export

Over the third quarter, the US (again) relayed more spam than any other nation, accounting for a massive 28.4 percent of all the world's spam emails sent through compromised computers, according to the latest Sophos study of the top 12 spam-relaying countries, reports MarketingCharts.

Mexico book-ends the list at number 12, having relayed 1.9 percent of spam messages in Q3. Meanwhile, Canada has lowered its spam-relaying share to just 0.8 percent, thanks in large part to the Government's Task Force on Spam, Sophos said.

In the previous quarter, the US — albeit still the top spam relayer — accounted for 19.6 percent of spam relayed, followed by China with 8.4 percent.

Accordingly, the gap between the US and its nearest rival increased significantly from the second quarter, with now-second-place South Korea responsible for relaying just 5.2 percent of spam messages in Q3, while another Asian state (and the previous quarter's runner-up), China, was third with 4.9 percent.

In fact, three of the four up-and-coming "BRIC" countries occupy third through fifth positions: Russia is fourth and Brazil is fifth; India does not make the "dirty dozen."

Five of the 12 are European states, ranging from fourth place France to 11th place Romania. Bridging Europe and Asia as the current occupier of Asia Minor, Turkey is in eighth place.

The increase in US spam relaying resulted in North America's overtaking of Asia and Europe to become the biggest spam-relaying continent during the third quarter.

Asia was close behind because of the large number of individual Asian nations relaying spam, while Europe managed to reduce its overall figure by 3.7 percent.

For the study, SophosLabs scans all spam messages received in its global network of spam traps.