Almost two thirds (64 per cent) of servers controlling spam traffic are located in Taiwan, according to a survey by email security firm CipherTrust.

Such servers, used by internet low lives to relay spam and phishing emails through zombie, compromised PCs, are also commonly located in the US. The US accounts for 23 per cent of the machines identified on CipherTrust's spam server blacklist with China in a fairly distant third place (three per cent).

"Taiwan, the United States and China are all countries that provide inexpensive broadband access by providers that are slow to shutdown malicious accounts," CipherTrust comments.

CipherTrust obtained its figures after deploying a network of zombie-like machines across the world to gather intelligence on spamming operations. While machines in this "zombie honey pot" avoid relaying spam or phishing attacks to end-users, they collect messages from spammers trying to control them. By capturing these messages, CipherTrust is able to determine the location of the spam servers. Spammers themselves, of course, may be located somewhere completely different, such as Boca Raton, USA (for example).

During the last month, CipherTrust identified a 21 per cent increase in the number of new zombie computers and a 20 per cent rise in unwanted email traffic. ®

Related stories

US tops spam relaying and malware leagues of shame (22 January 2007)
BT debuts 'spam-buster' system (12 October 2006)
Mocbot worm fuels zombie surge (23 August 2006)
First Chinese firm hit by spam fine (23 August 2006)
Secure Computing buys CipherTrust (12 July 2006)
Spam zombies give UK ISPs the fear (5 July 2006)
Junk mail scumbags in harvesting attack (26 June 2006)
1,000 Aussies caught in NAB phishing attack (19 June 2006)
PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (13 June 2006)
MS clean-up stats shed light on malware infections (13 June 2006)
Spam deluge eclipses email virus threat (1 June 2006)
Blue Security calls it quits after attack by renegade spammer (17 May 2006)
Botnet implicated in click fraud scam (15 May 2006)
Botnet master jailed for five years (9 May 2006)