Spam: now made in China

The politics of unwanted email is changing with China set to overtake the US any day now as the originator of most Irish inbox clutter.

Figures for November from Irish email monitoring firm IE Internet show that although the US is still the world leader with 27 per cent of dodgy emails originating there, this is a huge drop on October's figure of 48 per cent.

China is now second in the monthly world rankings of spam-producing countries, followed by Britain (21 per cent), France (15 per cent), India (seven per cent), and Turkey (four per cent). South Korea doesn't figure in the top six global spam machines for the first time in several months.

Meanwhile, as the world's spam merchants have been getting ready for their Christmas onslaught, virus writers have been busy too.

Two new viruses made it into the top five this month: W32/Warezov and W32/Tricky-Malware. And both are spreading fast, according to IE Internet.