Unspam files lawsuit against unnamed cybercrooks
Anti-spam firm hopes to force banks to share more information on attacks.
Unspam Technologies, the company behind Project Honey Pot, has filed a lawsuit
against unnamed 'John Does', who are thought to be responsible for stealing millions of dollars every month from US bank accounts
through the use of malware. In 2007, Unspam filed a similar
lawsuit against as-yet-unidentified spammers.
The purpose of this lawsuit, filed in a Federal District Court in Virginia, is to convince, or if necessary force
banks to disclose information that will help unmask the identities of the crooks involved in cybercrime. Banks are
known to be reluctant to share information about theft through phishing and malware, or even to admit that
they have suffered from such theft, and it is believed that this works to the advantage of the criminals behind
such attacks.
A second goal of the lawsuit is to find a 'chokepoint' in the systems used by banks that makes for easier abuse. Jon Praed,
Unspam's attorney and an experienced anti-spam lawyer, said that one possibility would be that the information made
available through the lawsuit will show that banks are only using single-factor authentication; in that case, it is hoped that the case would help
strengthen the authentication processes used by the banking sector.
More on the story is at Computerworld
here,
with the complaint filed by Unspam Technologies here (PDF).
25 August 2009
Tags:
legal, spam, unspam.
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