New Brunswick's dramatic coastal scenery and legendary hospitality appear to have attracted highly unwelcome visitors of late.

Cyber criminals have turned New Brunswick into the spam capital of the country, according to a report released this week by security firm Symantec Corp. of Mountain View, Calif.

But another security company -- Q1 Labs that has R&D labs in New Brunswick -- believes it's the province's world-class connectivity that's drawing all the unwanted traffic.

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It's unlikely spam incidents will severely affect operations of existing businesses in the province, or deter other firms from setting up shop in New Brunswick, said John Burnham, vice-president, corporate marketing at Q1.

As much as 92 per cent of e-mails received in New Brunswick qualified as spam, according to the report by Symantec Hosted Services, an anti-spam software and services subsidiary of Symantec.

That rate surpasses the Canadian average of 88 per cent, as well as the global rate of 89.3 per cent.

Interestingly other maritime provinces -- Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador -- rank low on the list of spam targets compiled by Symantec.

New Brunswick was followed by: British Columbia (89 per cent); Saskatchewan (88.7 per cent); Alberta (87.6 per cent); Ontario (97.5 per cent); Manitoba (87 per cent); Nova Scotia (87 per cent); Quebec (87 per cent) and Newfoundland and Labrador (86 per cent).

Spammers, however, are not at all playing favourites, says Paul Wood, an intelligence senior analyst at MessageLabs, a provider of online messaging security services acquired by Symantec in 2008."The thing to keep in mind is spammers don't really care what province you live in," he said.

Wood noted that percentages of spam incidents among Canadian provinces were actually not that different.

Cyber criminals operating botnets, he explained, are more concerned with spreading spam over areas that accommodate susceptible targets.

For instance, regions with a greater proportion of small and medium-sized businesses and firms in the hospitality or service industries tend to get spammed more than others, the Symantec analyst told ITBusiness.ca. "Our research indicates the hospitality industry in New Brunswick was a key driver in the spam rate for the province."

Wood said service-oriented companies, such as resorts, hotels and restaurants, tend to communicate more over the Internet with suppliers, partners and customers, and therefore receive a greater volume of spam than other businesses.

SMBs, he said, are also likely to have less financial resources and manpower to pour into security measures that fend off spam.

Wood rued the immense damage caused by spam -- depletion of network bandwidth, waste of processing power, and erosion of employee productivity.

Spam e-mail can lure workers into entering sites that infect their computers with malware designed to steal personal or sensitive corporate information or turn machines into botnets.