Japan Leads the Way in Spam Relay Prevention
Sunday, February 12, 2006 Posted: 07:27 PM JST
Everyday I get tons of spam, but almost none from Japanese spammers, even though that is where I live. A recent study by Sophos of the top twelve spam relaying countries confirms my experience. It actually places Japan on the bottom of the list.
Simon Burns of vnunet.com thinks this may be because of Japanese residential ISPs blocking outbound data on port 25, which is used to send mail from a server.
"Recent data," writes Burns, "shows that the amount of spam coming from a country appears closely related to the number of broadband internet connections in that country.
For example, the US has 21 per cent of the world's broadband lines, and accounts for 24 per cent of the spam relayed worldwide, while China is home to just under a fifth of broadband connections, and emits about a fifth of all of spam.
Japan, however, clearly bucks the trend. While the country has more than 11 per cent of the world's broadband connections, it is producing only two per cent of global spam. This is despite the fact that 100Mbps fibre internet connections, which are especially attractive to spammers, are common in Japan."
So why is this?
"The most likely reason for the correlation between broadband connections and spam output is the tendency for PCs on broadband lines to be taken over by malware and turned into so-called 'zombies', generating or relaying large quantities of spam.
Zombie PCs are believed to produce over 60 per cent of spam, according to security software firm Sophos, which gathered the data on the geographic origins of spam from its global network of spam detectors."
It is believed that more Japanese PC owners make good use of antivirus and proper security. But another reason, says Burns, may be Japanese residential ISPs blocking outbound data on port 25. This port is used to send mail from a server.
Keywords: internet_news
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