Spam related Web pages appear every three seconds

During this period, Sophos found 23,300 new spam-related Web pages and revealed that 92.3 percent of emails sent in the first three months of 2008 was spam.

"As long as spammers continue to make money from these nasty ruses, the spam plague will continue," said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos.

"Businesses must wise-up to this threat and recognise the importance of quarantining spam messages before they are delivered to the unsuspecting user."

The report found that for the first time ever, Turkey was in the top three spam-relaying countries in the first quarter of the year.

Compromised computers in Turkey are now responsible for relaying 5.9 percent of the world's spam, compared with 3.8 percent in the final quarter of 2007.

"Turkey's appearance in the top three makes for an interesting realignment so early on in the year, but does not mean that other countries can give up the fight - spam is a global problem and must be tackled as such," Theriault said.

The US continues to relay far more spam than any other country, but the gap is closing. According to Sophos, Russia maintained first and second places respectively, however, over the last year the number of spam messages sent from compromised Russian computers has more than doubled.

Elsewhere in the chart, Australia remains in 34th place, whilst New Zealand has fallen slightly from 55th place in the final quarter of 2007 to number 66.

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