Tag: legal
-
US court: passwords reasonable security for online banking
Security question considered second authentication factor. A US court has declared that a combination of passwords and ‘security questions’ is an ample way for banks to protect their customers’ online banking accounts. In May 2009, Patco , a Maine-based construction company became infected with the ‘Zeus’ (or ‘Zbot’) trojan which stole the company’s online banking…
-
Microsoft sues alleged spammer for gaming Hotmail’s spam filter
Messages marked as ‘not spam’ from phony web mail accounts. Connecticut spammer Boris Mizhen and several companies controlled by him have been sued by Microsoft for sending unwanted email to its customers and for gaming spam filters. Mizhen has a long history as a spammer. For years he was listed in Spamhaus ‘s ROKSO list…
-
McAfee offers payments to cover FP cleanup costs
Compensation for faulty update victims could set precedent. Victims of the erroneous McAfee DAT update last month are being offered cash payments to cover costs incurred in fixing the problem. The issue emerged on 21 April, when users of McAfee ‘s corporate solution VirusScan Enterprise found their machines rendered inoperable after the common process svchost…
-
Legal success against notorious spammers
Atkinson to pay huge fine; Ralsky to spend years in prison. US judges have sentenced two notorious spammers to a huge fine and years of imprisonment, respectively. Yesterday, a US Federal judge sentenced Lance Atkinson, a New Zealand citizen residing in Australia, to a fine of more than 15 million US dollars. Atkinson was the…
-
Unspam files lawsuit against unnamed cybercrooks
Anti-spam firm hopes to force banks to share more information on attacks. Unspam Technologies , the company behind Project Honey Pot, has filed a lawsuit against unnamed ‘John Does’, who are thought to be responsible for stealing millions of dollars every month from US bank accounts through the use of malware. In 2007, Unspam filed…
-
BBC botnet hijack proves controversial
Legal issues raised by broadcaster’s demo of spamming, DDoS, cleanup attempt. A BBC report into the dangers of botnets has got the corporation into hot water, after reporters took control of a cluster of hijacked systems, used them to demonstrate the ability to send spam and launch denial of service attacks, and then adjusted infected…
-
Texan firm sues whole security world
Swathe of major security providers cited in patent infringement case. A small Texan firm has taken on the mightiest corporations from across the security and anti-malware industry, launching a patent infringement suit against most of the major players in the field. The company, Information Protection and Authentication of Texas LLC (IPAT), holds a pair of…
-
US ISPs urged to snoop on traffic
NY Attorny General promotes deep packet inspection to AOL. ISPs in the US are coming under increasing pressure to impose deep probing of all their customers’ traffic, with the Attorney General of New York passing details of one system of deep packet inspection to major provider AOL . While the government’s intentions are to control…
-
Free speech argument overturns AOL spammer conviction
Virginia court upholds notorious Jaynes’ right to express himself in bulk. Infamous AOL spammer Jeremy Jaynes, convicted of a massive spamming campaign targeting AOL users in 2004, has had his conviction overturned in a Virginia Supreme Court judgement which essentially undermines the state’s local anti-spam laws in favour of free speech arguments. Jaynes was indicted…
-
41 months plus hefty fine for botherder
Cross-border operation brings adware crook to book. A Florida man has been sentenced to 41 months in prison and fined $65,000 (approx. £32,000) after implanting bot software on systems belonging to a global corporation and using them to install adware. When brought before US courts in March, the man, Robert Matthew Bentley of Panama City,…