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PlusNet Faces Spam Assault - a Caution for Others

Experts believe that e-mail is swiftly becoming a liability for businesses. They concluded this, after the hackers assaulted PlusNet, an Internet Service Provider. The hackers had stolen the list of e-mail ids of PlusNet subscribers.

The firm advised its customers to change their password details, after confirming that the spammers had got control of the web-server and stole the Ids of the subscribers. After hacking the list from the security system of Plusnet, the hackers forwarded it to the spammers, who in turn flooded the subscribers' accounts with spams. The firm shut down its web-mail service so that its engineers could tackle the problem.

The assault on Plusnet took place on 14 may, 2007, when customers reported to the company that their spam-free e-mail addresses were being flooded by unwanted discounted pharmacy marketing. Handful of forum posters even reported that their web-mail contacts received spams in large numbers.

As per the news published by Theregister.co, in the second week of May, PlusNet said that it regretted the incident and that they were trying their best to curtail the effects and also to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future.

The company asked its customers to be cautious of the probable malware infection. This incident indicates that the number is continuously on rise, say experts.

The Federal Trade Commission estimated that identity theft affected 10 million people or 4.7% of the total US population in 2006. This resulted in the loss of US$53 Billion. With the advancement of technology, increasing number of industries are faced with the threat of online Id theft, with financial companies sited on the top of the hit list.

The chief executive of secure instant messaging company Presence Networks, Symon Blomfield said that as the problem of spamming will increase, it would do nothing but cause the corporate networks to struggle, clean the messages in large quantities, before they reach the reciepient, as per the news published by ITpro, on May 24, 2007.

Charles Kolodgy, the research director at IDC, as per the news published by ITpro on May 24, 2007, said that sieving of messages, led to the reduction of unwanted materials such as phishing, spams and other such hindering attacks. Simultaneously, it could even a negatively effect the number of people visiting the website from the non-business segment. He further added that if these two aspects were conjoined, then it could lead to better productivity by the employees, as the number of unwanted messages will be reduced, leading to reduced cyber attacks through spams.

Related article: PlusNet E-Mailers Suffer Spammers’ Assaults

» SPAMfighter News - 6/2/2007

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