WINSFORD is the zombie capital of the world, according to figures released by an American software company.

The staggering statistics, compiled by Symantec, reveal four per cent of the world's spam, or unsolicited bulk and junk email, is sent from computers in Winsford. To put this into context, Winsford - with a population of just 33,000 - is second only to London in the amount of spam it sends around the globe and sends more than Australia and Oceania, Japan and Africa put together.

A spokesman for Symantec said: "Somewhat bizarrely Winsford is the world's second biggest hotspot for zombies, followed by Seoul in Korea.

"Winsford has an extremely small population compared with major cities around the world and the reason why so much spam comes from there isn't clear."

Spam is sent unknowingly by bot-infected computers, known as zombies, which attack other computers often infecting them with a virus.

Winsford was the number one spam sender in the world in June but now lies in second place ahead of Seoul in third and Beijing, the capital of China, in fourth.

Major software companies have invested billions of pounds developing software to combat the spam epidemic currently sweeping the Internet and it seems Winsford is at the heart of the problem.

The Symantec spokesman said: "Although people in Winsford may find it strange and possibly amusing that their town is second in the world in sending spam this is a serious problem.

"But as long as individual PCs are up to date with virus protection software then people in Winsford don't have anything to worry about."

The problem of spam emails has been worsened with the introduction of broadband technology which allows computers to stay logged on to the Internet 24 hours a day.

Stephen O'Brien, MP for Eddisbury, has also been left astonished by the results of the Symantec report.

He said: "The surprising part was to learn that Winsford is second only to London as the world's second biggest hotspot for hackers taking over other people's computer.

"While it is excellent news that so many people in Winsford are using broadband it is vital that they protect their system from computer hackers and identify thieves through the use of anti-virus software."