There are more than 42,000 Internet service providers (ISPs) in existence. But only 20 of them are responsible for 50% of all spam and phishing attacks that people receive.

Brazilian  researcher Giovane Cesar Moreira Moura says in his PhD dissertation “Internet Bad Neighbors” that in many instances, ISPs specialize in junk mail and malicious activity.

Many of the “bad neighbors” are concentrated in India, Vietnam and Brazil. In fact, one ISP, BSNL in India, accounted for 7.4% of all spamming addresses in the world.

But then there’s Spectranet in Nigeria, labeled the Internet’s most crime-ridden network because 62,5% of its addresses were found to distribute spam.

And the United States, according to Moura, has hosted the majority of phishing attacks.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Internet's 'Bad Neighbourhoods' Spread Scams And Spam (BBC)

Internet Bad Neighbors (Giovane César Moreira Moura, Centre for Telematics and Information Technology) (pdf)

Giant Internet Spammer Knocked Out, but It Won’t Make Much of a Difference (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)