The Florida Attorney General's office has filed claims under the
state's anti-spam law, charging two men with running an operation
that generated over 65,000 deceptive emails since 2003.
The state said email campaigns distributed by Scott J. Filary,
25, and Donald E. Townsend, 34, advertised more than 75 different
websites that engaged in fraudulent or illegal business activities,
including unauthorised sales of pharmaceuticals and cigarettes as
well as services for illegal downloading of copyrighted movies. If
found guilty, the defendants could face fines up to $24
million.
The Florida anti-spam law prohibits the distribution of
unsolicited commercial email that contains false or deceptive
subject information, or that is sent from invalid email addresses.
Violators face a penalty of up to $500 for every illegal email
message they send to Florida residents.
"Spam has been growing more sophisticated, which has forced
states like Florida to create or tighten laws on unsolicited
email," said Gregg
Mastoras, senior security analyst at Sophos Inc. "The message
from the Florida Attorney Gerneral's office is fairly clear - this
action will certainly make other spammers who aim to defraud think
twice."
Sophos recommends companies protect themselves with a
consolidated solution which can defend businesses from the threats
of both spam and viruses; and that users do not open or reply to
unsolicited emails.
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.