Coventry is top of the UK spam charts

Inboxes in Coventry are filled with 92.8 per cent spam

Coventry has claimed the dubious honour of being the most spammed place in the UK, according to the latest stats from Symantec Hosted Services, which estimates that the average inbox in the area comprises 92.8 per cent spam.

The security firm analysed the geographical location of its customers to compile the list, which places Ipswich as the least spammed location with an average of just 85.2 per cent.

However, spammers are unlikely to be targeting specific geographical locations in the UK, explained Symantec Hosted Services senior analyst Paul Wood.

The proliferation of small and medium sized businesses in smaller towns and cities may account for their featuring heavily in the top 10 list, while London, for example, is absent.

"Smaller businesses seem to receive a higher proportion of spam than their enterprise counterparts, for a number of reasons," said Wood.

"They have fewer employees and less legitimate mail. Spammers don't care how big they are. They generate random email addresses automatically, so an SMB could receive millions of spam emails a day even if it had only one or two employees."

Wood added that companies in industries such as manufacturing, which employ large workforces, actually receive less spam because few of those employees use IT.