America top of spam table, UK is ninth

So where does most of the world’s spam come from?

From Minnesota in America, actually. Home of the Hormel Foods Corporation who make the dubiously coloured and textured meat product we all know and, er, know. (It’s coming back in fashion though – thanks recession!).

But America is also the biggest producer of the electronic variety of spam that arrives in your inbox, attempting to persuade you to purchase pills which can make certain bodily parts grow longer, for longer.

Security experts Sophos measured the spam relayed by countries across the globe, and found that America is top of the table, responsible for 13.1% of the world’s spam.

India is second with 7.3%, Brazil close behind them with 6.8%, and South Korea in fourth with 4.8%.

The UK is ninth equal on 3.1%, tied with Italy and Russia.

Sophos points out that the traditionally viewed big, bad giant of the net malware scene, China, doesn’t make the top ten.

“In the last twelve months Sophos’s research shows that the proportion of spam relayed by Chinese computers has steadily reduced,” writes the company’s Senior Technology Consultant, Graham Cluley, on his blog.

In fact, China is down at fifteenth place in the spam league, with 1.9%.