11 Mar 2004
US firms take legal action against over 100 spammers, Sophos reports
AOL, Earthlink, Microsoft and Yahoo are taking legal action
against over 100 of the world's most prolific spammers. The US
firms claim that spammers have falsified email addresses to hide
their identities, and used open proxies through innocent third
party computers.
Legal documents show that one AOL lawsuit is against 40 unnamed
spammers it refers to as "John Does". Yahoo and Microsoft are suing
50 and 25 John Does respectively. In addition there are three
lawsuits against specific individuals and associated parties.
"Recent research by Sophos showed that over 50% of all spam is being
sent from computers based in the USA, so any action taken
against American spammers has to be welcomed," said Graham Cluley,
senior technology consultant at Sophos. "However, it is relatively
easy for spammers to relocate their businesses overseas making it
harder for the USA authorities to put a halt to their
activities."
Sophos recommends companies protect themselves with a consolidated solution which can defend
businesses from the threats of both spam and viruses. Home users,
particularly those with broadband connections to the internet, are
advised to ensure their computers are not unwittingly being used by
spammers.
About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.