Sunday, March 17, 2013

50% of all junk mail emanates from just 20 ISPs


[Credit: GCSAgents]

We all feel annoyed to see our junk folder full of junk mail every morning when we switch on our computers. And despite labeling them as spam, the number seldom falls.

And our disgust is augmented by a study details that concludes that about half of the junk mail on the net emanates from just 20  internet service providers (ISPs).

Amazing, isn't it? Just 20 ISPs contributing to almost 50% of the junk mail we receive.

The survey of more than 42,000 ISPs tried to map the net's "bad neighbourhoods" to help pinpoint sources of malicious mail. The survey by a researcher in the Netherlands found that, in many cases, ISPs specialize in particular threats such as spam and phishing.


Of the 42,201 ISPs studied about 50% of all junk mail, phishing attacks and other malicious messages came from just 20 networks, he found. Many of these networks were concentrated in India, Vietnam and Brazil. On the net's most crime-ridden network - Spectranet in Nigeria - 62% of all the addresses controlled by that ISP were seen to be sending out spam.

The data gathered for the study is helping to create analysis tools that will do a better job of assessing whether traffic coming from sources never seen before is good or bad. In the same way that people avoid walking through parts of towns and cities known to be dangerous, security tools can start to filter traffic from ISPs known as historical sources of malicious messages.

Read more about it at: BBC News/Technology

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