Russia Develops into Spam Superpower

By Dave Nixon

Russia may be a nation attempting to recapture superpower standing, but it has already accomplished it in one less welcome area, the quantity of spam it distributes to the world.

According to Sophos’s Q4 2007 spam report, the country now warrants the name of ‘spam superpower’ having witnessed its contribution to of overall volumes climb considerably over the last year, placing it definitively in second place behind adversary, the US.

The first three quarters of 2007 saw the country’s share rocket from 3 percent of spam volumes in Q1, to 3.1 percent in Q2, 4.4 percent in Q3, before reaching 8.3 percent in the new figures. As lately as 2006, the country’s share for the entire year was only 1.8 percent, which saw it at 11th place in the Sophos spam-sending league table.

Russia is already famous for supplementary styles of Internet criminality, such as malware and exploits, heightened by the near-legendary super network, the Russian Business Network, which purportedly went out of business in November.

Sophos was ardent to impress that the figures partially mirror the quantity of compromised botnet PCs in Russia that have been seized as relays, and do not merely reflect the quantity of spam that in reality begins in the country. All the same, the rise of Russia into second place, with no indication of volumes dawdling, is bound to add to the country’s dire, if occasionally unwarranted, image for being a malware-sending hotspot.

“We think that’s a pretty interesting increase and change in the chart over the years,” commented Graham Cluley of Sophos. “Of course, Russia has its fair share of spammers - and we see a good amount of Russian language spam advertising training courses and goods which are clearly of Russian origin.”

It’s not uniquely Russians who merit dire press from the newest figures. The US distributed a soaring 21.3 percent of global spam over the quarter, with China in third place behind Russia with 4.2 percent, and a host of countries together with numerous European ones, following closely. Russians will also undoubtedly draw attention to Europe’s overall spam-relaying figures dwarf that of their country. Europe’s collective total is now a concerning 27.1 percent.

The excellent news for the US is that its spam levels are falling, while others are increasing. Evaluation of the latest increases, Russia could hypothetically surpass the US in the next two years, though spam statistics are infamously tough to predict. It is just as probable that another part of the world will come to the forefront.