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International Spam Ring Shut Down, Fined $37 Million. Massachusetts prosecutors are still seeking Leo Kuvayev, the leader of the "Internet Spam Gang," whose operation managed dozens of illegal websites and sent out millions of messages peddling everything from counterfeit pharmaceuticals and pirated software to phony mortgage deals and pornography. Kuvayev and some of his cohorts are believed to be in Russia. For details, see http://www.ago.state.ma.us/sp.cfm?pageid=986&id=1502
419 Scammers Face Jail. Nigerian officials continue their
campaign to eradicate the criminal Internet scams for which their country has
become notorious. Several major spammers have already been apprehended and
given stiff sentences for their role in bringing down the Banco Noroeste in
Brazil with an elaborate advance-fee scam:
http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024852,39154412,00.htm
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4690031.stm
'I Will Eat Your Dollars.' For an enlightening behind-the-scenes look at how 419 scams are perpetrated, see the L.A. Times article, "I Will Eat Your Dollars" at http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fg-scammers20oct20,0,301315.story?collection=la-yahoostorylinks
On October 1, Governor Schwarzenneger signed the nation's first law imposing stiff penalties on "phishers" (email con artists posing as legitimate businesses who trick victims into revealing sensitive personal information that can be used in ID theft). For details, see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9547692/
Feds Nab Major ID Thieves in Sting Operation. In November, six people who were involved in Internet sales of credit card, debit card, and PIN numbers, as well as other stolen identity information, pled guilty to fraud charges brought by the U.S. Secret Service. For details, see http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,69616,00.html
Portland Drug Raid Uncovers ID Theft. Sensitive information that could be used in ID theft scams was found on a computer at the site of a recent drug raid in Portland, Oregon. Hundreds of thousands of names, birth dates, home addresses, Social Security numbers, and credit scores were among the data. Portland police are warning people to check their bank accounts and credit scores as a precautionary measure. See http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=32555
California Botmaster Arrested. A recent California case involving a "botmaster" who employed armies of "zombie" computers to commit fraud exposes a new criminal trend in hacking. Employing a malicious program called a "bot," botmasters are able to hack into computers and harness their collective power for their own ends. In November, FBI agents arrested the most nefarious botmaster to date: a 20-year-old California man who ran a network of 400,000 compromised computers for illegal gain. For details, see http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1881621,00.asp
Oregon Man Pleads Guilty in Botnet Crime. A 21-year-old Beaverton man recently pled guilty to launching DDoS attacks on the name server for Ebay.com via a botnet worm program. See http://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=7363