Spam remains an attractive way for cybercriminals to launch attacks, but ISPs such as Microsoft, Google and Cloudflare have done very little to prevent spammers from operating on their networks.

According to the data gathered by Spamhaus and presented by the Atlas VPN team. Microsoft is the most spam-friendly ISP with 433 known spam issues as of this month.

Microsoft is followed by Cloudflare with 430 unresolved spam issues and Google with 352 such issues to date.

As of late, there has been a particular upsurge in cybercriminals abusing free resources belonging to Google to distribute spam. That includes Google outbounds, Gmail, Google Groups, as well as Google Docs, Drive and Forms.

Cybercriminals’ Tactics with Spam

Rūta Čižinauskaitė is public relations manager at Atlas VPN. She said spam messages can contain malicious links and attachments. Those can infect victims’ computers with viruses and give cybercriminals access to their personal information.

Atlas VPN’s Rūta Čižinauskaitė

“Spam emails may also be used in spoofing or phishing scams to acquire personal information such as passwords, bank account information and other sensitive data,” she said.

Moreover, spammers like to employ social engineering techniques, Čižinauskaitė said. They do so to convince potential victims to send them money or reveal personal information.

Just as many ISPs are reluctant to address the ever-growing spam issues, many countries also do very little to fight spammers operating within their borders, according to Atlas VPN. They’re essentially becoming safe havens for such threat actors.

Today, the United States is the most spam-enabling country. It has 3,054 unresolved spam issues related to spam sources and the hosting of spam services. Next up is China, with 2,531 spam issues, followed by Russia with 711 issues.

“As an added layer of spam protection, it is recommended to utilize an antivirus solution that includes advanced anti-spam features and other spam-filtering tools,” Čižinauskaitė said.

When spam reaches a user’s inbox, they shouldn’t respond, she said. Doing so will only encourage them to send even more spam.

With the rising number of internet users, spam volume is likely to continue increasing, Čižinauskaitė said.