Security news
Security news23 February 2005
Microsoft sues Israel's #1 spam suspect
According to media reports, Microsoft has filed a 2.5 million shekels (approximately half a million US dollars) law suit against a man suspected of being Israel's leading spammer.
30-year-old Amir Gans is said to be responsible for sending more than 50% of all of the spam email in Israel.
In July 2004 Gans was sued by the Israeli ISP Golden Lines for a quarter of a million shekels (approximately US $57,300) after his company, New Approach, allegedly sent 510,000 junk emails over 18 hours. As a result, Golden Lines says, the ISP's servers were blacklisted by anti-spam organisations blocking legimate emails and damaging their reputation.
Gans is a well-known figure in the Israeli internet community, speaking often on the subject of internet privacy and direct marketing email, and is said to readily admit to running a company which sends bulk email.
Microsoft Israel and MSN allege that Gans's company not only sent unsolicited adverts via email to their clients, but also disguised the emails as coming from Hotmail Israel in an attempt to trick recipients into opening the message.
Microsoft has asked the court to order Gans to make public details of how many email messages his company sent to Hotmail users, while posing as Hotmail subscribers, and to pay damages for every message sent.
Gans has denied the charges, and filed a police complaint alleging that Microsoft has threatened him.
"Spammers not only present a nuisance to millions of innocent computer users around the world, they are also costing companies money and damaging reputations," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "There needs to be more international action against spammers to send out a clear message that their behaviour will not be tolerated. No spammer should be able to sleep in their bed at night for fear of the authorities knocking on their door."
Sophos recommends companies protect themselves with a consolidated solution which can defend businesses from the threats of both spam and viruses.
