Europe Leads The World In Zombies

Ask a friend to name the world’s top home for zombies, ie, computers hijacked by evil doers for nefarious purposes, like spamming, phishing and virus distribution.

If your friend has been properly conditioned by the press, the blowback will likely be either the USA or China.

After all, both fit the popular mindset. Zombies tend to dominate areas where unsophisticated users enjoy fast Internet connections. The US is home to teaming hordes of greedy old capitalists. And China’s home to teeming hordes of greedy new capitalists.

Unfortunately, it’s a myth.

The real King of the Zombies is the European Union, which is also home to some of the world’s most stringent and punitive laws for dealing with privacy and spam.

Worldwide Zombie Distribution

Political Unit	Share
European Union	26%
United States	19%
China	15%
South Korea	10%
Brazil	6%

CipherTrust Research, July 2006

That’s the conclusion of CipherTrust Research, based on analyzing billions of messages per month. The team actually tags a quarter-million new zombies or infected IPs, every single day.

According to CipherTrust techs, the EU harbors 26% of the world’s zombies, while the USA trails at 19%, China fiddles around at 15%, and South Korea slinks in with just 10% of the take.

So why doesn’t the public perception match the statistics?

Turns out, it’s all in the reporting. If you break down the European Union by state, you get easily overlooked tiny numbers. Germany and France, for instance, are each home to around 6% of zombieworld, while the UK and Spain are worth 3% apiece.

The European Union’s Major Zombie Nests

EU State	Share
Germany	23%
France	22%
United Kingdom	12%
Spain	11%

CipherTrust Research, July 2006

In that light, it seems only fair to report the zombie stats for each of the subdivisions of the United States and China. Instead of major political divisions, we could compare California with Germany and Beijing… Or match-up Hainan with Spain and Mississippi. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

Nope. If the the media wants to treat the EU like one of the big kids, it needs to recognize the EU’s collective failures along with any successes.

When it comes to zombies, the EU is King.

It’s just too darned bad that the zombie builders haven’t gotten around to reading all those EU laws.

That would scare them off.

Email Battles Backgrounder:

• Most Desktops Are Running As Zombies?; Email Battles; 26 June 2006.
• How To Help The FTC Stop Zombies, Step One; Email Battles; 26 May 2005.
• Spamming Trick: Don’t overwork your zombies; NewsByte; Email Battles; 19 May 2006.
• Zombie Armies Out-Maneuver DNS; Email Battles; 05 May 2005.
• Desperate Zombies Fall Back To Tired Tricks; Email Battles; 17 March 2005.
• 10,000 Zombies Laid To Rest; Email Battles; 09 September 2004.
• Shopping For Spam Zombies; Email Battles; 10 June 2004.
• How To Get Rejected By Spam Zombie Army; Email Battles; 24 May 2004.
• As Supply Shrinks, Zombie Prices Soar; Email Battles; 13 May 2004.
• Zombies Clobber Spam Fighters; Email Battles; 11 February 2004.