  A detailed characterization of the particle induced background is fundamental
for many of the scientific objectives of the Athena X-ray telescope, thus an
adequate knowledge of the background that will be encountered by Athena is
desirable. Current X-ray telescopes have shown that the intensity of the
particle induced background can be highly variable. Different regions of the
magnetosphere can have very different environmental conditions, which can, in
principle, differently affect the particle induced background detected by the
instruments. We present results concerning the influence of the magnetospheric
environment on the background detected by EPIC instrument onboard XMM-Newton
through the estimate of the variation of the in-Field-of-View background excess
along the XMM-Newton orbit. An important contribution to the XMM background,
which may affect the Athena background as well, comes from soft proton flares.
Along with the flaring component a low-intensity component is also present. We
find that both show modest variations in the different magnetozones and that
the soft proton component shows a strong trend with the distance from Earth.
