People are now so used to junk emails offering them penis extensions or Cialis refills (when did I order Cialis?) that they treat them as an unwelcome irritation rather than a malicious attempt at infiltrating their personal details. However cases like the recent arrest of Robert Soloway alert us to the fact that these annoying emails can be seriously damaging to our wealth, and that these spam mailouts are sent out by hard headed criminals.
Mr Soloway has been indicted on charges of mail fraud, identity theft and money laundering, and is behind some of the millions of spam emails sent every year. Soloway used special software to infect computers with virus's that turned them into 'zombies'; unwittingly sending out spam to millions of people- often from their own computers. This breaches not only privacy, but also raises identity issues, and security worries, relating to bank accounts, encrypted emails and personal information.
The old adage, of if you don't recognize it, don't open it is not always possible in world where criminals have gotten more sophisticated. I recently had an email in my junk box from Paypal, reportedly asking some basic security questions, but it turned out just to be a front to gain personal information, also known as phishing. I emailed it to Paypal to deal with- bu nonetheless opened it, thinking it had arrived in my junk mail by error. Thankfully the authorities are now taking a stricter line with this type of fraud, and with Mr Soloway being the first person ever prosecuted for sending out spam emails, hopefully we can look forward to safer emails, or at least, safe from him.
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The guy in that picture *terrifies* me.