Coventry is UK's spam hotspot

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Coventry is the most spammed place in the UK, with a 92.8 per cent spam rate, according to Symantec Hosted Services research.

Dudley, another Midlands dwelling, was ranked in second place with 92.1 per cent, whilst the Lancashire towns of Wigan and Blackburn were in third and fourth respectively.

The UK’s least spammed place was Ipswich on 85.2 per cent, followed by Sunderland and Llandudno.

In terms of industries, the Symantec Hosted Services research, carried out over a ten-month period, showed the highest spam rate to be in the telecoms, accommodation and catering, and education sectors.

The least spammed were the automotive, recreation and estate agent industries.

Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst at Symantec Hosted Services, told IT PRO that at first it seemed difficult to ascertain why certain places were spammed more than others, until the team looked at what kinds of companies were operating in the relative towns and cities.

Wood explained that small and medium-sized businesses are generally more at threat from spammers, where IT budgets may be smaller.

He also warned of the dangers of botnets, which send out around 90 per cent of all spam.

“Botnets have become much more technologically advanced,” Wood said, pointing out they are much harder to detect now as well.

While companies may initially not be too concerned about spamming, once the problem becomes “more insidious,” firms start to recognise the need to take action, added Wood.

One pattern Wood had noticed was where SMBs cannot afford to invest capital expenditure in expensive spam filtering hardware and software, they are turning to the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model for greater cost effectiveness with the same quality of services.

This week, Sophos’ Dirty Dozen list of spam relaying countries had the UK in fourth place, having been in ninth in the previous quarter.

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