5-6% of spam e-mails originate from India

The government today said about 5-6% of the global spam or junk e-mails in 2011 originated from India.

"According to international reports, the total email traffic worldwide categorised as spam is about 75-80%, in the year 2011. The share of spam e-mails originating from India is about 5-6% of the total worldwide spam email traffic,"  Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

He added that though the Indian government has not conducted any study regarding the misuse of internet, various organisations across the globe have published reports on internet security covering aspects like spam e-mails.

 

Junk mails from malware-infected computers, selling counterfeit or illicit goods, generally contain malicious links to another false website.

Replying to another question, he said due to the nature of IT and cyber space offering anonymity and not restricted by geographical boundaries, the problem of spam mails could be minimised but cannot be eliminated completely.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), in coordination with the industry and service providers, is working towards disablement of "spam bots" located in India, he added.

Compromised computer systems known as "spam bots" are largely responsible for generating majority of spam mail traffic.

Pilot said the Information Technology Act 2000 has been amended by the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008. Section 66A of the Act provides for punishment for sending spam or unsolicited e-mail messages from communication services.