In its latest monthly reports on companies being hit by spam, MessageLabs has come up with the fact that Egham, in Surrey, has the highest level of businesses hit by spam email.
Second slot is Alton in Hampshire, whilst third position is taken by Petersfield, also in Hampshire.
The figures are eye-watering, with business email users in Egham being hit by an astonishing 189 spam emails per day, whilst firms in Alton and Petersfield are being hit by 167 and 116 spammed emails per day, respectively.
For most email users, of course, a large slice of this spam is being intercepted at the tier 1 ISP level and, where appropriate, by Messagelabs servers, but Matt Matt Sergeant, MessageLabs' senior anti-
spam technologist, says it's a given that larger cities such as London, Birmingham and Manchester will receive high levels of spam.
"However, by breaking statistics down to an average number per business user, the results are much more interesting. We can start to identify problem areas and analyse why businesses in different areas and industries are receiving more malicious emails than others," he said,
According to Sergeant, larger companies will typically have better policies in place when it comes to internet security, and these organisations are usually located in the UK's larger cities.
"In contrast, businesses operating outside of major towns and cities are usually small and mid-size companies with less time and resources to devote to IT security," he explained,
Sergeant went on to say that smaller firms also often need to pro-actively push their contact details out into the public domain in order to secure business, whereas larger businesses can afford to rely more on reputation and referrals.
"Actively pushing out names and email addresses can provide cybercriminals with an easy hit list to target with spam emails," he said, adding that just under 15 per cent of emails sent within the UK now appear to be spam.
The US, he said, is now the most popular point of origin for spam, with spam heavyweight countries such as China and Russia following in second and third position...
Second slot is Alton in Hampshire, whilst third position is taken by Petersfield, also in Hampshire.
The figures are eye-watering, with business email users in Egham being hit by an astonishing 189 spam emails per day, whilst firms in Alton and Petersfield are being hit by 167 and 116 spammed emails per day, respectively.
For most email users, of course, a large slice of this spam is being intercepted at the tier 1 ISP level and, where appropriate, by Messagelabs servers, but Matt Matt Sergeant, MessageLabs' senior anti-
spam technologist, says it's a given that larger cities such as London, Birmingham and Manchester will receive high levels of spam.
"However, by breaking statistics down to an average number per business user, the results are much more interesting. We can start to identify problem areas and analyse why businesses in different areas and industries are receiving more malicious emails than others," he said,
"In contrast, businesses operating outside of major towns and cities are usually small and mid-size companies with less time and resources to devote to IT security," he explained,
Sergeant went on to say that smaller firms also often need to pro-actively push their contact details out into the public domain in order to secure business, whereas larger businesses can afford to rely more on reputation and referrals.
"Actively pushing out names and email addresses can provide cybercriminals with an easy hit list to target with spam emails," he said, adding that just under 15 per cent of emails sent within the UK now appear to be spam.
The US, he said, is now the most popular point of origin for spam, with spam heavyweight countries such as China and Russia following in second and third position...
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