Internet security giant McAfee has issued its latest quarterly Threat Report for Q1-2009, which reveals that junk email (SPAM) now accounts for 86% of all email (down from an average of 90% in 2008). Elsewhere cybercriminals have taken control of almost 12 million new IP addresses (Internet connected computers) since January, a 50% increase over 2008.


The month of March in recent years has set email volume records, but this March is well off the pace. Last year we saw an average of 153 billion messages per day, while this March averaged only about 100 billion messages per day. The drop is attributed to last November's closure of several major McColo SPAM servers.

Sadly the USA continues to be the biggest distributor of SPAM, putting out 35% of the worlds junk. This is followed by Brazil on 7.3%, India 6.9%, South Korea 4.7% and China 3.6%. Happily the UK, which was responsible for 2.3% of global junk in Q1-2008, does not even appear in the latest Q1-2009 top 10.

Disappointingly we are still home to 4.7% of the worlds hijacked computers, though this is far short of the front running USA with 18% and China on 13.4%. Never the less we're still the 5th highest host of infected (zombie) computer systems by country.