Millions of Indian computers are spam generating zombie bots

A report has shown that India’s contribution to the total volume of spam or junk mail generated during the second quarter of 2011 totaled 14.06 per cent, making it one of the biggest spam generators in the world.

A report by Kaspersky Lab which manufactures and markets anti virus software, has said that in the second quarter of 2011, spam was sent most actively from India, Brazil and Indonesia.

The report says this is because these countries house millions of unprotected, unpatched machines that can remain active in zombie networks for long periods of time.

The zombie machines used to spread spam emails are now located in virtually every country of the world. " But Developing countries are attractive for botmasters due to the absence of effective anti-spam legislation and low IT security levels, while developed countries are of interest because of their fast, widely available Internet connections, Darya Gudkova, Head of Content Analysis & Research at Kaspersky Lab.

However, malicious attachments were most frequently found in mail traffic received in Russia (12.5 per cent), with the US being the second largest victim.

PTI