Spam Ring Indicted

A federal indictment was recently unsealed in Detroit, charging 11 people with violations of the CAN SPAM Act. The DOJ release alleges that the defendants set up "an international scheme to make money by manipulating stock prices through illegal spam e-mail promotions." The indictment also alleges that the defendants tried to send their spam through the use of botnets.

New CRS Report On Botnets, Cybercrime

CRS recently published a new report entitled "Botnets, Cybercrime, and Cyberterrorism: Vulnerabilities and Policy Issues." Among the findings in the report are that "cybercrime is becoming more organized and established as a transnational business....[and that] designs for cybercrime botnets arebecoming more sophisticated, and future botnet architectures may be more resistant to computer security countermeasures."