July 2008 malware and spam geographical and vertical trends

July 2008 MessageLabs Intelligence Report highlights the following trends:

Geographical trends

• In July, Switzerland remained the most spammed country with levels reaching 84.2 percent of all email. The largest increase in spam levels this month was observed in the United States where it rose by 5.9 percent to 79.8 percent.
• Spam levels in the UK reached 69.9 percent in July and 74.6 percent in Canada. Germany’s spam rate reached 70 percent and spam rose to 70.6 percent in the Netherlands. Spam levels in Australia were 64.1 percent, 72.9 percent in China and 67.8 percent in Japan.
• The largest increase of .48 percent in virus activity was observed in Canada where virus levels of 1 in 80.7 put the country in third place for July.
• Virus levels for the US were 1 in 243.7 and 1 in 110.3 for the UK and 1 in 214.8 for Germany. In Australia, virus levels were 1 in 303.1 and 1 in 378.6 for Japan.

Vertical Trends

• Spam decreased across all industry sectors in July with the exception of the Non-Profit sector where spam rose by 5.8 percent to 82.2 percent.
• The largest decrease was noted in the Accommodation and Catering sector where levels fell by 3.6 percent and 73 percent respectively.
• Chemical and Pharmaceutical sector spam levels reached 72.6 percent, 78.3 percent for Retail, 72.4 percent for Public Sector and 68.5 percent for Finance.
• Similarly, virus levels across most industry sectors decreased during July. In the Real Estate sector, virus levels rose by .07 percent to 1 in 135.4 emails containing malware. The largest decline was noted in the Accommodation and Catering sector where levels fell by .51 percent to 1 in 69 emails containing malicious content.
• Virus levels for the IT Services sector were 1 in 158.7, 1 in 176.6 for Retail and 1 in 198.8 for Finance.