Federal Trade Commission shuts down the Internet's largest spam ring

Posted by Caitlin on October 15th, 2008

On Tuesday, a federal court in Chicago froze the assets of a spam network known to authorities as HerbalKing and ordered the group to shut down. According to SpamHous, a nonprofit anti-spam research group, at one point HerbalKing was responsible for about one third of all spam on the Internet. The HerbalKing network used a global network of computers infected with malicious software to send billions of messages a day, mainly promoting various pharmaceuticals. Officials and investigators say this international spam operation may be the largest they have ever encountered. F.T.C. commissioner Jon Leibowitz hopes that "at some level this will help make a small dent in the amount of spam coming into consumers' in-boxes," but Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at spam-fighting security firm Sophos, stated that "it wouldn't be a surprise if people don't notice any difference in their in-box."

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