Israeli cyber-crooks outspam Nigerian emailers

A Silicone Valley software security study has revealed that Israel has the most web-criminals per capita on the planet. Israeli internet-users constitute nine per cent of online crime, followed by Taiwan with 8 per cent, and Poland (tied with America with 6 per cent). Those shady Nigerians who beg to park funds in your personal bank account and give you a portion of any gains no longer dominate the statistics. Now the malicious Israeli bot-masters propagate viruses, "trojan horses" and other sundry programs designed to take over target computers. E-mailed attachments can gain control of a victim's computer without his knowledge and steal useful information, such as credit card account numbers or personal address books. Gone are the days of frivolous pranksters: greed is the motive now. Unfortunately, they do not all take the Sabbath off. Two per cent of the world's spam originates in Israel, a relatively tiny country. For the past two years, spamming technically has been illegal in Israel. Enforcement is pretty tough.