Application security

Marshal: Europe responsible for most spam

Europe is the most prolific source of spam, according to new research from email security vendor Marshal.

The statistics revealed that, over the last two weeks, European nations were responsible for 36.6 percent of all spam. Asia accounted for 30.7 percent of spam, while North America was the source of 21.3 percent of spam.

Six European nations - France, Spain, Poland, Italy, Germany and the U.K. - consistently occupy half the spots in lists of the top 12 spamming countries, putting Europe at the top of the spam leaderboard. This is despite the U.S. and China individually producing the largest volumes of spam.

Ed Macnair, CEO of Marsha,l said it was "common knowledge that China and the U.S. are the two countries pumping out the greatest volumes of spam, but what's less well understood is that six European countries are together responsible for almost 40 percent of the world's spam output."

However, according to a study from Sophos released earlier this week, Asia remains the world's top spam producing continent, generating 40 percent of the world's spam during this year's second quarter.

Europe produced 27 percent during that time, and the U.S. produced 26 percent, according to the Sophos study.

The U.S. also finished as the world's top spam-producing nation, with China a close second, according to that study.

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