2 ½ Years for Facebook Spammer
US authorities have yet again signalled their intent to take the crime of spamming very seriously by handing down a custodial sentence of 2 ½ years to the man known as the Spam King of Facebook, Sanford Wallace. In addition to the custodial sentence, Wallace was also ordered to pay over $300,000 in restitution for the spam that he sent, after he was expressly forbidden from using Facebook under the terms of an earlier court order.
Guilty as Charged
Wallace pled guilty to two charges: one of fraud and criminal contempt for his misuse of email, and another of criminal contempt. It is believed that he has been responsible for more than 27 million spam messages that were sent through around 500,000 hacked Facebook accounts. Because the messages that he sent looked to their recipients as though they had come from Facebook friends, many of the recipients clicked on the links that they contained, which led them to phishing sites where their login details were stolen and saved for later use. After that, they were redirected to affiliate sites who paid Wallace for the traffic he was sending their way.
Not His First Offence
Sanford Wallace has a long history of computer offences, stretching back to 2004 when a restraining order was taken out against him owing to the fact that companies he owned were found to be selling a cure for spyware that he himself had installed. In 2006 he was fined $4 million for distributing spyware and in 2008 he and his business partner were on the wrong end of a $234 million court judgement after being found guilty of stealing passwords for MySpace accounts and using them to send over 700,000 spam emails. On three separate occasions in 2009, Wallace was ordered not to use Facebook in any way or form. Obviously, this was an order that he failed to take seriously. He was eventually caught again when an investigation by the FBI led to him being prosecuted in 2011.
Will It Ever Stop?
While Wallace may not be able to carry on his activities from behind bars, he has shown an amazing propensity for spreading malware and spam across the globe, leading experts to believe that it is not unthinkable he will do so again. Even if he has learned his lesson, there are thousands of other people out there just waiting to take on the mantle of the spam king, partly due to the financial rewards on offer and partly because they seem to enjoy the influence they wield when spreading spyware far and wide.
Can You Protect Your Company?
If you are responsible for administering a corporate network, you should make sure that you have an effective business anti spam filter in place. Cloud based filters are especially popular nowadays, owing to the ease with which they can be deployed and the speed with which they can be updated. For further information on world-class antispam software, call and speak to a member of our team today.
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