A top spammer known as the "Spam King" has been arrested after
years of investigations and experts say it could result in a
short-term dip in the volume of spam.
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it should boost morale around the country and have an effect on law
enforcement of cybercrime around the world.
Dmitri Alperovitch,
chief research scientistSecure
Computing |
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Robert Alan Soloway, 27, is accused of using botnets to send out
millions of
spam emails. A federal grand jury returned a 35-count
indictment against Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire
fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated
identity theft and money laundering, according to the
Associated Press.
Soloway pleaded not guilty to all charges. The case is the first
in the US in which prosecutors have used identity theft statutes to
prosecute a spammer for taking over an Internet domain name.
Soloway could face decades in prison.
Prosecutors say Soloway infected computers with
malicious code to create massive botnets of zombie machines and
sent out millions of junk emails since 2003.
Experts optimistic but guarded.
Soloway's arrest may reduce the volume of spam in the
short-term, say experts and analysts, but the real spam threat
comes from gangs based in Asia and Russia, where law enforcement is
not as tough on cybercrime.
Dmitri Alperovitch, chief research scientist at Secure
Computing's TrustedSource Labs called the arrest an important test
to cybercrime laws. Other countries will be watching the case
closely, he said.
"If this prosecution is successful it should boost morale around
the country and have an effect on law enforcement of cybercrime
around the world," Alperovitch said.
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| Fighting spam: |
New image spam sneaks into inboxes
Researchers at Secure Computing Corp. have discovered a new form of
image spam that is sneaking into corporate systems and clogging
inboxes.
Security technology making headway against spam
Paul Judge, chief technology officer at Secure Computing, discusses
the progress of the battle against spam and whether technology has
reached the limits of its ability to help in the fight Reputation systems gaining credibility in fight
against spam: Now that nearly all organisations are
employing some sort of anti-spam technology, spammers know their
only hope for success lies with outwitting spam-detection
strategies. But as Mike Rothman writes, the emergence of
reputation-based systems is helping fight the spam
battle. |
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The prosecution faces a difficult battle to link the spammer to
compromised machines. In many cases, investigators track products
being shipped as a result of spam campaigns, he said.
Depsite the technical issues, Cybercrime laws are being updated
in several countries, including Russia, where an antispam law was
recently enacted. Although Soloway is based in the United States,
much of his spamming activity could be traced to botnets in Asia,
where many computers are infected, Alperovitch said.
Other experts say spam will continue to plague inboxes as long
as its profitable for spammers.
"I wouldn't breathe any sigh of relief because he was caught,"
said Charlotte Dunlap, a senior analyst at Sterling, Va.-based
Current Analysis. "Enterprises continue to keep throwing more and
more products at the spam problem, which is costly and not always
terribly effective."
Spammers have become increasingly sophisticated developing
techniques to trick antispam software. Image based spam is one of
the latest types of spam found slipping through some corporate
email systems.
Dunlap said the latest technologies being implemented to fight
spam are reputation services, which can identify and rate
suspicious email. The goal is to cut off a lot of malware at the
gateway before it even enters an enterprise's network, she
said.
Botnet sophistication is also continuing to increase baffling
some researchers, said Alex Shipp, an anti-virus technologist for
email/IM security vendor, MessageLabs. The vendor has been tracking
a number of groups using botnets to spew malware laced spam,
including a Taiwanese criminal spam ring.
"You need less bots to do the work that you used to need," Shipp
said. "Coders are becoming smarter and they're becoming much more
difficult to detect."
Soloway allegedly used the botnets to send the spam urging
people to use his marketing company to advertise their products. On
his Web site, Soloway advertised his ability to send out as many as
20 million email advertisements over 15 days for $495, according to
the indictment.
Microsoft won a $7 million civil judgment against him in 2005 to
try and stop the spammer, but prosecutors said he continued his
activities.
Prosecutors are seeking to have him forfeit $773,000 they say he
made from his business, Newport Internet Marketing Corp.