Idaho: Spam Capital of the U.S.

A new study has awarded Idaho the dubious honor of Most Likely to Be Spammed. The state known best for potatoes and film festivals is also the most spammed state in the union. 93.8% of all its email traffic is spam, which is nearly 7.5% higher than the global spam rate of 86.4%. The honor is surprising considering that last year it came in at number 44 on the list!

Kentucky, New Jersey, Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Maryland, North Carolina, New Mexico (tied for 10th round out the list of the top 10 most spammed states. The least spammed state? Montana.

Experts say one thing those states also share is a high concentration of small and midsize businesses, while the least spammed states have a high concentration of large businesses. This suggests that spammers are targeting SMB owners, and this is likely because those types of businesses are less likely to have security measures such as firewalls or encrypted networks in place or even software solutions. A recent survey of over 1400 such businesses revealed that almost 60% had no endpoint protection and 42% didn’t even run anti-virus software!

Judging by the list of most spammed states and how they all have high concentrations of small and midsize businesses, it appears that spammers already knew that, which shows that they really seem to do their homework; so make sure that your company does its own and is protected!