Sophos’s latest report into spam-relaying around the world has discovered that Europe has snatched the top spot from Asia, as the top continent for relaying spam emails.
With 35% of all spam intercepted by Sophos’s global network of spam traps coming via European computers, it’s way ahead of Asia and North America.
Now, it’s important to remember that in the vast majority of cases spammers don’t use their own computers to send out the spam that’s arriving in your inboxes. Instead, they take over botnets of compromised computers around the world (that have been infected with malware) and without the knowledge of their rightful owners, send out junk mail in the background.
These cybercriminals are motivated by money – and they don’t just use your hacked PC to spread spam, but also to steal your identity and bank account information, to launch denial-of-service attacks and to distribute malware to…
Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.
Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter, Mastodon, or Threads to read more of the exclusive content we post.