The UK has come ninth in a top 12 list of the worst countries for relaying spam, in a report by Sophos.
The security company's "dirty dozen" report also put the US in top place with over over 13 percent of all spam coming from here. The country was also said to generate "hundreds of millions of junk messages every day".
In fact, the spam is so bad in the US that it even beat China, which is usually blamed for many of the world's net problems, and didn't feature in the top 12 at all. It came in at 15th place and generated only three percent of spam.
Graham Cluley senior technology consultant at Sophos, said in a blog post:
"All eyes aren't so much on which countries are on the list, but the one which isn't. China has earned itself a bad reputation in many country's eyes for being the launch pad of targeted attacks against foreign companies and government networks, but at least in the last 12 months they can demonstrate that the proportion of spam relayed by their computers has steadily reduced.
"A new dirty 'gang of four' - South Korea, Brazil, India and their ringleader the US - account for over 30 per cent of all the spam relayed by hacked computers around the globe."
The UK came joint with Russia and Italy and beat Korea in forth place.
Sophos named India in second place which also ties in with a report by Network Box.
It found that India has pushed Korea into second place and taken over the mantle of the worlds largest producer of internet viruses, according to its analysis of internet threats in April. India now accounts for just under 10 (9.9) percent of the worlds viruses, ahead of Korea at 8.24 percent and the US at 6.7 percent.
It also found India is also becoming a more dominant force in spam production and intrusions: 7.40 percent of the worlds spam now originates from India; and the country is responsible for 8.6 percent of intrusions. This is behind the US, which still produces more spam than any other country (11.91 percent).
Simon Heron, Internet Security Analyst for Network Box said: "It's important to remember that malware production is not a static industry. All that is needed is a computer with a connection to the internet and in no time vulnerable computers are compromised, recruited to a botnet and become part of a malware factory. These problems are not confined by borders. Cyber crime is a global problem which nations need to work together to tackle, or continue to fall victim to attacks. "
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