A shot of gmail spam filter showing interesting patterns. (Image: Tesla Aldrich, via Flickr / CC)

India is now the world’s worst spamming country after it toppled the U.S. as king of spam, says security firm Sophos.

Sophos keeps an eye on spamming worldwide and releases its top 12 list of spam “dirty dozen” list of spam-distributing countries, in which India surpassed the U.S. in less than a year after it accounted for one in every ten spam emails globally.

The firm estimates that this gain from the world’s second most populous country follows the increase in number of locals who are going online. It adds that the rapid increase could be because of the reality that most of India’s computers are insecure and maybe its Internet service providers (ISPs) do not consider spam protection as worth the additional expenses.

“While traditional marketing spam may appear to be no more than an annoyance, offering pills that have questionable claims or to get you rich quick, they can often to lead to more serious threats to your personal information,” said Sophos senior technology consultant.

“The latest stats show that, as more first-time internet users get online in growing economies, they are not taking measures to block the malware infections that turn their PCs into spam-spewing zombies.”

Trend Micro, a leading security software firm, also lists India as the main source of spam distributions, with its latest quarterly threats report giving the country 20 percent market, whereas the U.S. only got six percent share.

About Francis Rey Balolong

A coffee junkie who spends most of his time writing about the latest news on social media and mobile technology. I would definitely consider myself a nerd (in the coolest most hipster way possible). That being said, I love technology, music, writing, and all things mobile. Follow me: Google+ Twitter

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