In the article, "Spammer Gets Four Years In Jail For Stock Fraud Scheme," Robert Westervelt reports that last week, Alan M. Ralsky, the “Godfather of Spam,” was sentenced to prison for his role in a fraudulent stock spamming scheme. Ralsky and three accomplices, including John S. Bown, John Hui, and son-in-law Scott Bradley, responded to their 2007 indictment by pleading guilty to mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering, and also to violations of the CAN-SPAM Act. As a result, Ralsky will spend four years in prison.
Ralsky, a resident of West Bloomfield, Michigan, has been under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service for the last six years. According to the prosecution, Ralsky and his team established “botnets by infecting computers with malicious code to create and control an army of zombie machines that sent out millions of junk emails since 2003” (Westervelt 1). This spam advertised “pink sheet” stocks which produced an increase in the stock price, allowing the intended stock holders to sell for a large profit.
The report notes that this spamming scheme resulted in the laundering of millions of dollars, and, to quote the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, “the Court has made it clear that advancing fraud through abuse of the Internet will lead to several years in prison.”
Once again, this appears to be a case where some personal investigation along with a skeptical approach to emails of this nature could have prevented or, at the very least, reduced the success of Ralsky and his fellow spammers. According to this article, McAfee Inc. reported that spam an malware levels are the highest level ever recorded. That being so, cases like these serve as a reminder to be cautious when encountering suspicious emails and always be aware of the dangers that inevitably accompany technology.
Source: http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid14_gci1375505,00.html
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I feel that spam is a problem that will never go away until they figure out how to combat these zombie computers. Zombie computers to me are the scariest thing out there today because most of the time we don't know how many are owned by one person. Who knows what one person can do with that large of a resource? I feel this article goes past just spamming for profits in the stock market. The real problem that needs to be addressed is how to prevent people's computers from being taken over by hackers without them even knowing. This would prevent multiple security problems like spamming and denial of service attacks.
ReplyDeleteSpam definitely is a problem that won't go away. I feel as though people will continue to find a way to get past the e-mail and internet monitors. Like stated earlier we need to protect computers from being hacked into and taken over without them knowing. This reminds me of a spam I saw on facebook the other day which was sent from a virus or "zombie" computer, which sent a message to all of my friends list, and flooded my wall post with the spam. I think it is important to figure out how computers are exposed to these viruses and how they send off the large amounts of spam.
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised that spam and malware are quickly growing trends. It seems like it would be a very easy task to spread malware to a wide number of people, especially since almost everyone is connected online is some way, whether it be with a computer, iPhone, etc.; this just makes the pool of potential victims so much greater. What makes these attacks even more effective is the fact that these spam emails contain malware that go virtually undetected, like Trojans (which are disguised as benign softwares and programs). I also think that the fact that people are constantly connected to each other through social networking tools (such as instant messenger or social networking sites like Facebook and myspace) makes it easier for these malicious files to spread quickly, and without much notice.
ReplyDeleteI think that aside from being aware of the files that 'friends' may be sending you, users should also be aware of how to check for malware on a regular basis. Anti-malware/spyware programs such as SpyBot and MalwareBytes tend to be pretty useful in catching most viruses and Trojans. They might not catch everything, but they are much better than nothing.
I think that one other problem with malware is that they can have a tendency of just embedding themselves in the part of a computer's memory that is generally untouched by these scanning programs. When my computer was infected by a Trojan last semester, I performed several scans to try and clean out my system, but the problems kept on coming back. Some people try to use system restore to return their computer to the last working configuration, but doing this does not get rid of the virus/trojan. What I had to do (and I don't recommend doing this in most cases) was disable my System Restore, run my computer on Safe Mode, and then do all the scanning from there. Luckily, this seemed to get rid of the trojan/virus, and now my computer is not blue screening or having problems. But this just goes to show how problematic malware can be. Just something to think about. Sorry for the ramble!
This is an unfortunate situation for the victims in this case but I believe that people must take responsibility in their carelessness regarding email response. The concerned parties should have been much more cautious and used trusted sources such as stock brokers or investment bank figures to validate what the messages claimed.
ReplyDeleteI think that there are two things that spammers are able to use to their advantage. One is the rapidly changing tools in technology world which causes increasing difficulty to detect scams and fraud. The other is the carelessness and gullible nature of so many internet users. With a society driven by consumerism and wealth accumulation, it seems that the easiest way to lure people into a scam is to lead them to believe that they will either gain or save money in some way or form. While it is unlikely that technology will stop developing, it is possible for users to become more educated and conscience of the dangers that can lie in unfamiliar emails.