UK tops list of Nigerian spam targets

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Computer users in the UK are most likely to be targeted by ‘Nigerian’ spam emails, according to the results of a McAfee's spam study released today.

UK participants received almost a quarter of the global total for these emails, which usually take the form of someone pretending they are from Nigeria and telling the target they are ‘beneficiary of a long lost relative’ or asking them to participate in a ‘money transfer’.

The SPAM Experiment involved 50 people across 10 countries, five of which were UK-based, and required users to surf without any kind of anti-virus or anti-spam countermeasures for 30 days in April this year. The participants were allowed to click on any spam messages received and visit any website that they wanted, with McAfee examining the spam as well as the daily blogs the users were required to write.

Despite the small survey size, the participants received 104,000 spam emails throughout the 30 days, an average of 2,096 messages each or 70 messages a day. The UK participants received 11,965 spam messages, which was the fifth highest. One of the participants – software developer Simon, received 5,414 spam emails, the fourth highest from all of the countries.

None of the UK participants received viruses, but eight per cent of the spam was classified as phishing emails which were supposed to have been sent from US banks including Chase, Bank of America and Wachovia, as well as spam favourite eBay. The experiment also said that some participants noted a decrease in processing speed as well as more frequent pop-ups, a tell-tale sign of malware.

“The fact that in just 30 days they commented on a noticeable change in the power of their computers proves just how much malware is being installed without innocent people’s knowledge. Spam is most definitely much more than a nuisance; it’s a very real and fast-growing threat,” said Guy Roberts, director of McAfee Avert Labs, EMEA.

Worldwide, the results of the experiment showed a shift away from mass generic spam to messages that targeted specific users or groups, such as using the victim’s own language or social engineering techniques. The most popular spam subject was financial, offering pre-approved loans or credit cards.

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