January 2009 malware and spam geographical and vertical trends

January 2009 MessageLabs Intelligence Report highlights the following trends:

Geographical Trends:

• Although, spam levels in France fell by 0.3 percent in January, France topped the list as the most spammed country with levels reaching 83.8 percent of all email
• Spam levels in the UK reached 77.2 percent in January and 75.1 percent in Canada. Germany’s spam rate reached 77.9 percent and spam rose to 78.2 percent in the Netherlands. Spam levels in Australia were 73.5 percent, 73.0 percent in China and 70.7 percent in Japan
• Virus activity in the UK fell by 0.26 percent to 1 in 165.6 emails, where it takes the top position for viruses
• Virus levels for the US were 1 in 455.7, 1 in 324.4 for Canada and 1 in 337.9 for Australia. Virus levels for Germany were 1 in 189.6 and in Japan they reached 1 in 500.6.

Vertical Trends:

• With an increase of 0.5 percent, the Marketing & Media sector was the most spammed industry in January, with a spam rate of 77.8 percent
• Chemical and Pharmaceutical sector spam levels reached 75.8 percent, 77.7 percent for Retail, 75.1 percent for Public Sector and 74.2 percent for Finance
• Although virus activity decreased by 0.57 percent in the Education sector, it held the highest virus levels with 1 in 98.8 emails being infected
• Virus levels for the IT Services sector were 1 in 276.3, 1 in 306.7 for Retail and 1 in 245.5 for Finance.