Twenty-five-year-old Eric Head from Kitchener, near Toronto in
Canada, has been accused of being one of the world's most prolific
spammers, sending an alleged 94 million spams in just one month,
according to media reports.
In March, the global internet provider Yahoo sued Head, along
with his father and brother, for sending spam. This lawsuit is part
of an industry crackdown on hundreds of people who are filling
email users inboxes with unwanted spam.
Head is reported to having agreed to paying in excess of US
$100,000 to Yahoo as part of his settlement.
In a published statement, Eric Head expressed regret and
encouraged others to follow in his footsteps: "I urge everyone who
is involved in the commercial bulk e-mail business to cease all
operations unless and until they are completely compliant with the
requirements of the new United States anti-spam laws."
"Email providers and users alike refuse to sit quietly while the
spammers gum up their email boxes. Not only does it steal valuable
computer resources, it also wastes increasing amounts of users'
time," said Carole Theriault, security consultant for Sophos. "Such
lawsuits may make people think twice before they get lured into
this line of nefarious work."
Eric Head's lawyer, Huey Cotton, said that his client planned to
find a new career away from spamming. "He's going to play in a band
and find a way to use his knowledge to help protect kids on the
internet," said Cotton.
Sophos recommends companies protect themselves with a consolidated solution which can defend
businesses from the threats of both spam and viruses.
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.