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| Anthony Greco is alleged to have sent over a
million spam messages to users of MySpace.com |
An 18-year old man from New York has been arrested at Los
Angeles International airport in connection with sending over a
million spam messages.
Anthony Greco, of Cheektowaga, New York, was arrested when he
arrived at the airport on Wednesday 16 February.
Assistant US Attorney Brian Hoffstadt claims that Greco created
thousands of accounts on an internet service called MySpace.com and
used them to send approximately 1.5 million spam messages to
website members.
According to the authorities, Greco contacted MySpace.com after
sending the spam and asked to be given exclusive rights to send
commercial messages via the website. It is alleged that when this
request was ignored Greco threatened to share details of his
spamming techniques with other internet users.
Investigators claim that MySpace.com spent more than $5,000
protecting itself against further exploitation by spammers, and
deleting spam from its servers.
"It's good to see the US take positive action against those they
believe are responsible for spamming the internet," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "However, with more and more
people recognising the fortunes which can be made through internet
crime there are many people who are still to be caught."
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.