The UK saw an increase in phishing attacks during July to overtake South Africa and become the most targeted geography for phishing emails, with one in 127.9 emails identified as phishing attempts compared to one in 163.1 emails in South Africa, according to the July 2011 Symantec Intelligence Report.
Phishing levels for the US were one in 1,237 and one in 192.6 for Canada, while Germany phishing levels were one in 798.3, one in 1,448 in Denmark and one in 526.9 in The Netherlands. In Australia, phishing activity accounted for one in 850.8 emails and one in 2,503 in Hong Kong, while one in 13,167 for Japan, one in 872.9 for Singapore and one in 382.4 emails Brazil.
The spam level in the UK was 78.2% in July 2011, with Saudi Arabia remained the most spammed geography followed by Russia with a rate of 85.6%.
About 78% of email was spam in the US and 77.7% in Canada, spam accounted for 78.8% of email traffic in the Netherlands, 77.9% in Germany, 77.6% in Denmark and 75.8% in Australia.
In Hong Kong, 76.8% of email was blocked as spam and 75.7% in Singapore, compared with 74.7% in Japan, while spam accounted for 76.9% of email traffic in South Africa and 78.7% in Brazil.
South Africa saw highest ratio of malicious emails in July (one in 125.2 emails), overtaking the UK which saw one in 127.0 emails as malicious.
In the US, virus levels for email-borne malware were one in 634.8 and one in 255.9 for Canada, while virus activity reached one in 482.1 in Germany, one in 1,033 in Denmark and in The Netherlands one in 451.3.
In Australia, one in 654.8 emails were malicious and one in 748.7 in Hong Kong; for Japan it was one in 2,093, compared with one in 761.8 in Singapore, while Brazil saw one in 332.1 emails contained malicious content.
Overall, the global ratio of spam in email traffic rose to 77.8 in July 2011, an increase of 4.9% percentage points when compared with June 2011, while phishing email activity slightly increased by 0.01 percentage points.
The global ratio of email-borne viruses in email traffic was one in 280.9 emails (0.333 percent) in July, an increase of 0.01 percentage points since June 2011.
The report said an average of 6,797 websites each day harbouring malware and other potentially unwanted programs, an increase of 25.5% since June 2011.
The Automotive industry sector remained the most spammed industry sector with a spam rate of 80.7% in July 2011, followed by education sector (80.3%), Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector (77.9%); IT Services (77.8%), Retail (77.8%), Public Sector (77%) and Finance (77%).
The Public Sector remained the most targeted by phishing activity in July, with one in 73.2 emails comprising a phishing attack.
