Tokyo police believe that Yuki Shiina sent 2.2 billion spam email
messages.
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have warned
companies to abide by anti-spam laws following the arrest of a man
suspected of sending over 2 billion unwanted commercial emails.
According to media
reports, police in Tokyo, Japan, have arrested 25-year-old Yuki
Shiina following a complaint last year by an ISP that he was
sending huge amount of spam emails advertising gambling and dating
websites. Police believe that Shiina bought 600,000 email addresses
off the internet for 100,000 yen (US $927) and earned over 2
million yen (US $18,540) through the spam campaign.
It is claimed that Shiina faked the sender information on the
emails in an attempt to avoid detection, breaking Japanese
laws.
"Spammers believe they can escape the long arm of the law by
hiding on the internet, but increasingly the authorities are
cracking down on this kind of net abuse. No-one who hears about a
single person believed to have sent 2.2 billion spam emails can be
in any doubt as to the scale of the problem, and it's essential for
a clear message to be sent out that the police are serious about
catching the criminals responsible," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "Legitimate businesses need to
make sure that they are abiding by the law, and be careful not to
hire firms and third-party individuals to market their websites or
goods via junk email."
Last month, in a separate case, Sophos reported on the first arrest
in Japan of a malware author. Kyoto police uncovered a plot to
infect users of the P2P file-sharing network Winny with a Trojan
horse that displayed images of popular anime characters while
wiping music and movie files.
Sophos recommends companies protect themselves with a consolidated solution which can defend businesses
from the threats of spam, spyware, hackers and viruses.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.