Security news19 June 2007
70 months in jail for convicted AOL phisher Phisher ordered to pay $1,002,885.58 to victims
Jeffrey Goodin faces nearly six years in jail for his phishing offences.
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have welcomed the news that a man has been sentenced to 70 months in prison after phishing credit card information from internet users.
47-year-old Jeffrey Brett Goodin of Azusa, California, has been sent to jail for nearly six years after using several different compromised Earthlink email accounts to send thousands of unsolicited emails posing as AOL's billing department. The phishing emails directed recipients to bogus payment websites. Goodin was also convicted on a number of other counts including wire fraud, possession of unauthorized credit cards, misuse of the AOL trademark, and attempted witness harassment.
The court heard that it cost Earthlink nearly $1 million to detect and fight the phishing attempt, and he was ordered to pay a total of $1,002,885.58 to victims by US District Judge Christina Snyder.
"Goodin's sentence sends out a strong message to other hackers tempted to engage in phishing and identity theft that their criminal activities will not be tolerated by the authorities," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "Phishing and other forms of identity theft are on the rise, and it's all too easy for internet users to be duped into believing they are handing over their details to someone they can trust."
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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.
