Pakistan among top 12 spammers of the world

Pakistan's share is only 2% but situation is alarming because of volume of internet users.

Despite the diminutive size of the internet niche in Pakistan, the country has been included in the list of highest spammers online.

Sophos, an IT security and data protection company, revealed the statistics of the top 12 countries which spread spam, specially through emails.

According to the stats, US tops the list with a total share of 11.3% in world’s spam.

Although Pakistan remains on the eleventh slot in the list with its share of mere 2%, the situation is alarming because of the volume of internet users in the country, which is very low as compared to other countries.

A major fraction of the spam that is spread from Pakistan constitutes the annoying advertising which is mostly done through mass emailing system of Google Groups.

IT experts anticipate a growth in the number of fraudulent activities like phishing, Trojans, identity theft, etcetera.

However, the spam emails which are sent from big brands and Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) could not be identified, whereas, 94 per cent of spam emails come through Google Groups which were specifically made for marketing spam emails.

Lately Google had restricted Pakistani Groups from adding any user in Google Groups. Earlier, any group could add up to 100 individuals per day into their group to float marketing emails.

Other countries which are there on the list are as under:

1. United States 11.3%

2. S Korea 9.6%

3. India 8.8%

4. Russia 7.9%

5. Brazil 5.7%

6. Taiwan 3.8%

7. Vietnam 3.5%

8. Indonesia 3.3%

9. Ukraine 3.1%

10. Romania 2.8%

11. Pakistan 2%

12. Italy 1.9%

13. Others 36%

A version of this post originally appeared on ProPakistani.