Dragging the Net for Cyber Criminals
Yahoo! News - Dragging the Net for Cyber Criminals
Wed Aug 25,11:45 AM
By Cynthia L. Webb, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
In an attempt to stem the growing tide of online scams, identity theft and the proliferation of junk e-mail, the Justice Department (news - web sites) and state law enforcement officials have initiated what seems to be the largest dragnet yet against spammers, so-called "phishers" and other Internet con artists.
The Washington Post and New York Times both reported today that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft is expected to announce details about a far-reaching cybercrime crackdown in a news conference on Thursday.
The effort "will include arrests, subpoenas and property seizures ... according to law enforcement and industry sources" and "some of the more than 100 enforcement actions" will go on through tonight, The Washington Post reported. The New York Times said federal and state officials "have quietly arrested or charged dozens of people ... in recent weeks, according to several people involved in the actions." The Times report also put the crackdown's scope in perspective. The announcement "is meant to highlight several different government actions related to computer crime. The department has conducted a handful of similar operations in the past, calling them cyber sweeps, but the crackdown to be disclosed this week is thought to be the biggest by far."
• The Washington Post: Justice Dept. to Announce Cyber-Crime Crackdown (Registration required)
• The New York Times: Dozen Charged In Crackdown On Spam and Scams (Registration required)
A number of the cases involve spam, the pesky junk that clogs e-mail inboxes and saps productivity and IT costs. Meanwhile, The Post explained, more than half the targets are scam artists such as phishers, who send out e-mails that look legitimate, often carrying a company logo and other details. The scams lead to bogus Web sites and e-mail addresses that entice computer users to divulge financial data and other personal details. The information is then used for identity theft and other crimes.
In advance of Ashcroft's news conference, Robert Wientzen, head of the Direct Marketing Association, told The Post: "It's a large number of cases." The DMA, a trade group, is involved because bona fide marketing efforts have taken a hit as consumers get inundated with spam and phony online offers. "The FBI (news - web sites), with help from the DMA, launched Operation Slam Spam a year ago, with technical operations at a field office in Pennsylvania. Wientzen said his organization provided financial and technical help. The actions to be announced Thursday will be the first fruits of the effort, though it is unclear how many of the cases involve formal charges or indictments. But Wientzen said he expects a second round of actions in the fall," the paper said.
The New York Times provided more details on the operation, which the DMA helped bankroll, the article said. "Many of the cases were developed by an unusual investigative team that combined federal law enforcement officials and executives from industries that do business through the Internet. Nearly two dozen investigators work in an office in Pittsburgh operated by the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, a nonprofit organization with close ties to the [FBI]," the paper said. More from the article: "The operation has built a database of known spammers, drawing from law enforcement agencies and from private companies that are investigating and bringing civil suits against some of the biggest users of junk e-mail messages. It has also deployed online decoys to catch spammers and has purchased products advertised in spam messages so that the financial records can be traced to the ultimate source of the message."
Fighting Spam
Officials are hoping the crackdown will make a dent in spam and other online problems, mirroring the expectations of federal lawmakers. "Congress passed a law last December criminalizing fraudulent and deceptive e-mail practices. The law subjects spammers to fines and jail terms of up to five years," the New York Times reported. "So far, the law has had little noticeable effect. Spam represents 65 percent of all e-mail, up from 58 percent when the law was passed, according to Symantec, a company that makes a widely used spam filter."
PC World has more numbers that are equally depressing: "In early August, the nonprofit group Consumers Union reported that in a survey of 2,000 e-mail users, 47 percent said spam had increased since the federal antispam law took effect in January. Sixty-nine percent said at least half the e-mail they receive is spam. This corresponds to a Commtouch Software study, which reports a 42 percent increase in the first half of 2004," the publication said Monday.
• PC World: The Fog of Spam War
The United States is the breeding ground for most spam, according to anti-virus firm Sophos. The company said yesterday that "roughly 43 percent of spam sent around the globe originates from the United States, which enacted the federal Can-Spam Act in January to criminalize e-mail fraud. That percentage dwarfs the junk e-mail coming from South Korea (news - web sites) and China, the second- and third-largest sources, respectively. South Korea accounts for 15 percent of the world's spam and China, 12 percent, according to a report from Sophos released Tuesday. Brazil is the fourth-largest ... at 6 percent," CNET's News.com reported. Agence France-Presse also picked up the report.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said in a statement: "Several measures have been suggested to tackle spam - from charging to send e-mail to sender authentication mechanisms - but these alone will not solve the problem. Only a combination of technology, international legislation and user action will put a stop to spam."
• CNET's News.com: U.S. Cooks Up Most Spam
• Agence France-Presse via Australian IT: U.S. Largest Exporter of Spam
Sophos's helpful information page offers ways to avoid and deal with spam and The Washington Post recently published a how-to list for spotting spam and other online scams.
Meantime, spam-fighting technologies continue to be at the forefront of the spam battle, as do Internet service providers, including America Online, Earthlink and Yahoo, who have rolled out spam filters and other spam-fighting efforts. "This month, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) reviewed several e-mail authentication proposals, agreeing to fast-track a submission from Microsoft known as Sender ID. The group also reviewed submissions for signature-based authentication from companies such as Cisco Systems and Yahoo and recommended the authors combine and resubmit those proposals together," CNET's News.com reported. "A timeline has yet to be set for reviewing and approving these proposals. But the attention on e-mail authentication standards is a welcome sign of progress, according to anti-spam experts, who said the technology promises what current anti-spam solutions can't yet offer -- the chance to drive up costs for spammers."
BBC News Online today reported about a novel spam-fighting approach, which uses DNA-style analysis to target spam. The BBC said "computational biologists at IBM's TJ Watson Research Center have devised an anti-spam filter based on the way scientists analyse genetic sequences. Called after Feng Shui character Chung-Kwei, the formula automatically learns patterns of spam vocabulary and has proved to be 96.5 percent efficient. In tests, the filter only misidentified one message in 6,000 as spam."
• BBC News Online: 'DNA Analysis' Spots E-mail Spam
While spam continues to be a thorn in the side of Internet users, phishing attacks are growing in popularity too. Just last week, two of Germany's largest banks were hit, IDG News Service reported. "Until recently, most phishing attacks have been aimed at customers of banks in English-speaking countries. ... But 'over the past few weeks, we've seen a shift to countries like Brazil and now Germany,' said Mikko Hypponen, director of antivirus research at F-Secure Corp. in Helsinki, Finland," the article said.
• IDG News Service via Computerworld: Big German Banks Hit By Phishing Attacks
The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., reported today that phishing attacks "are growing about 52 percent a month, according to the latest report from the AntiPhishing Working Group, an informal organization that includes computer security companies, banks and law-enforcement agencies. It said there were 1,422 unique attacks in June and that 92 percent relied on e-mail. The most-targeted companies in June, it found, were Citibank, eBay, U.S. Bank and PayPal. Attacks also were reported involving Bank One and BB&T"
• The Courier-Journal: Phishing Scams Spread on Internet
Online Recruitment Magazine's Web site published a list yesterday of the top five ways to spot a phishing attack. "We are starting to see more and more phishing sites which are not targeting specific financial institutes, but are targeting general e-commerce. We have seen 'fake' online banks, sporting good stores, and pharmacies, demonstrating that the attacks are becoming more dangerous to a greater number of businesses," according to Dan Hubbard, an Internet security expert at the British company Websense Inc., the report said.
Disconnect for Phone Industry
Phone service and other technology innovations by cable, wireless and Internet players are hurting traditional phone company business, the Wall Street Journal reported in a front-page article today. For example, "[Verizon Communication Inc.'s] traditional phone lines are down by 9 million, or 16 percent, since the end of 2000, according to research firm Precursor Group," the article said. "Across the nation, the business models that have worked for decades for Verizon and other phone giants are showing signs of unraveling. The cable industry's push into the phone business and a torrent of innovations such as Internet calling and advanced wireless technology are threatening the foundations of the nation's $300 billion telecom industry."
• The Wall Street Journal: Phone Industry Faces Upheaval as Ways of Calling Change Fast (Subscription required)
The International Herald Tribune ran its own telecom trend piece today, focusing on the growth of international telecom business on the heels of trouble with U.S. telecom companies. An excerpt: "Billions of dollars worth of global telecommunications networks bought or built under U.S. direction and used to transport much of the world's Internet traffic now belong to Chinese, Indian and other non-U.S. companies that snapped them up for a small fraction of their original cost less than four years after the telecom bubble burst," the article said. "The shift in the balance of power has both political and economic consequences. For one, the international components of a nation's communications infrastructure, considered a strategic and defensive holding, may now be controlled by those who don't share the nation's interests. But another consequence is that such diversification of ownership contributes to competition and thus helps keep prices down."
• International Herald Tribune: U.S. Telecom Pain Is World's Gain
Getting the FCC (news - web sites)'s Attention
In more telecom news, Verizon and Qwest Communications International Inc. want the FCC on their side. They "have asked a federal court to throw out a set of temporary regulations banning giant regional phone companies from raising the wholesale rates they charge competitors for at least six months. The legal action comes after the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) issued the temporary rate freeze on Friday. The rivals, including AT&T Corp. and MCI Inc., have no local network of their own and depend on the regulated rates to offer their own brand of local phone service," The Washington Post reported. The Financial Times picked up on a telling quote from the Baby Bells, from their filing: "It is simply inexcusable for the FCC to flout a binding judicial determination yet again, and to extend those never-lawful requirements for nearly another year," the companies said.
• The Washington Post: Verizon, Qwest Seek to Overturn FCC Rate Freeze (Registration required)
• Financial Times: Verizon and Qwest Ask Court to Block FCC Rules
Search Satisfaction Getting More Hits
Researchers have found that Americans are happier with search engines and news sites, according to a Dow Jones Newswires article on a University of Michigan study. "Search engines led the pack in customer satisfaction, with Google Inc. scoring 82 out of 100 on the American Customer Satisfaction Index, a national economic indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of products and services, which is updated quarterly. Satisfaction for the e-business category, which includes search engines, portals and news sites, rose to 72.5 from 71.4 last year but the score is still lower than the Index's cross-industry average of 74.4."
• Dow Jones Newswires via The Wall Street Journal: Attitudes Improve Toward Search Engines, News Sites (Subscription required)
EU After Microsoft Again
Microsoft can't catch a break with antitrust regulators across the pond. "The European Commission (news - web sites) on Wednesday launched an in-depth investigation of plans by Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc. to acquire joint control of ... ContentGuard Holdings Inc.," Reuters reported. The wire service said the deal evenly splits ownership of the U.S. technology company, which protects digital files from illegal copying. "The European Union (news - web sites) executive [body], which regulates mergers and takeovers, said a preliminary review had revealed that the deal could create or boost a dominant position by Microsoft in the market for so-called Digital Rights Management," the article said. The Associated Press also reported the news, noting the "world's largest software company and the world's biggest media concern aim to develop new industry standards in the rapidly expanding market for Internet distribution of electronic media. Other partners include Japanese giant Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites)., but they also face industry pressure to make any Microsoft-backed standards compatible with as many devices and online stores as possible."
• Reuters: EU Probes Microsoft/Time Warner Venture
• The Associated Press: Microsoft-Time Warner Deal Faces In-Depth EU Review
Filter is designed for hard-core techies, news junkies and technology professionals alike. Have suggestions, cool links or interesting tales to share? Send your tips and feedback to cindyDOTwebbATwashingtonpost.com. (Yes, those spammers have been having a lot of fun with my e-mail address lately.)
August 25, 2004 at 11:34 PM in Online crime | Permalink
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