Report: US is Worldwide King of Spam Email

The US is the worldwide king of spam according to a new report from the security firm Sophos.

Sophos' annual Security Threat Report revealed that U.S.-based computers relayed 22 percent of the world's spam last year, followed by China at 15.9 percent and South Korea at 7.4 percent. What's more, 90 percent of all spam is now relayed from zombie computers, machines hijacked by Trojan horses that are under the control of malicious hackers.

In the same issue, CIO Today reports that MySpace has filed a lawsuit against alleged spam king Scott Richter, who had to pay Microsoft $7 million in a similar suit in 2003.

Apparently, spammers love to watch their malicious codes spread through social media sites, which have more open architecture than traditional sites.

Email is becoming less and less viable every day. Don't know about you, but I am drowning in more than 600 emails a day, of which 50 might be important. Despite spam filters at the server and email level, new and different types of spam pop in every day.

Over the weekend, a barrage came with headlines like "Saddam Still Alive," "China Shoots Down US Aircraft," and other inflammatory statements that might make many people click on the malicious attachments.

Now if Steve Jobs really wants to do something for the world, he should concentrate on how to filter junk out of our emails.