F-Secure’s Chief Research Officer Mikko Hypponen calls for the establishment of ‘Internetpol’ to tackle organized crime on the Web.
Helsinki, Finland – October 16, 2008: F-Secure’s quarterly
security wrap-up highlights the challenge of bringing cyber
criminals to justice by examining several high profile cases which
have been in the news recently.
Jeremy Jaynes, a prolific spammer in the United States, has had
his conviction overturned by the Virginia Supreme Court following a
ruling that the state Anti-Spam Law violated the First Amendment to
the Constitution concerning the right to free and anonymous speech.
In New Zealand, a teenage author of banking Trojans which earned
millions of dollars for a criminal gang, walked free from a court
despite pleading guilty. Meanwhile, the Attorney General’s Office
in Washington, United States, and Microsoft Corporation have
announced that they are filing lawsuits against the purveyors of
rogue security applications attempting to scare Internet users into
buying worthless products.
As the courts and law enforcement struggle to stem the mounting
Internet crime wave, Mikko Hypponen F-Secure’s Chief Research
Officer says: ”The Internet has no borders and online crime is
almost always international, yet local police authorities often
have limited resources for investigations. We should consider the
creation of an online version of Interpol – ‘Internetpol’ – that is
specifically tasked with targeting and investigating the top of the
crimeware food chain.”
Other topics in the quarterly wrap-up include phishers attacking
consumers using the international banking crisis as a ruse, a
spamming campaign that uses the U.S. presidential election as a way
of spreading malware, and the return of the malicious attachment in
infecting computers.
The full third quarter 2008 security wrap-up is available at
http://www.f-secure.com/2008
About F-Secure Corporation
F-Secure Corporation protects consumers and businesses
against computer viruses and other threats from the Internet and
mobile networks. F-Secure’s award-winning solutions are available
as a service subscription through more than 170 Internet service
providers and mobile operator partners around the world, making
F-Secure the global leader in this market. The solutions are
also available as licensed products through thousands of resellers
globally. The company aspires to be the most reliable security
provider, helping to make computer and smartphone users’ connected
lives safe and easy. This is substantiated by the company’s
independently proven ability to respond faster to new threats than
its main competitors. Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Finland,
F-Secure has been listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd since
1999. The company has consistently been one of the fastest growing
publicly listed companies in the industry. The latest news on
real-time virus threat scenarios is available at the F-Secure Data
Security Lab weblog at
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/.
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