Microsoft files 117 phishing lawsuits

IDG News Service - Microsoft Corp. today filed 117 civil lawsuits against alleged phishers trying to scam Microsoft customers out of personal information such as credit card numbers.
The lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, seek to identify large-scale scam operations and recover damages from so-called phishing operations. Phishers typically send out spam e-mail that's made to look like an official message from a real company asking recipients to click on a link and update their personal information. The link takes consumers to a Web page that looks like real company's site but actually collects personal information for identity thieves to use.
The new phishing lawsuits -- Microsoft had previously filed lawsuits targeting two other phishing schemes -- cite unnamed defendants who sent spam e-mail and created Web sites targeting Microsoft services such as MSN and Hotmail, Aaron Kornblum, Microsoft's Internet safety attorney, said at a Washington, D.C., news conference. Through the lawsuits, Microsoft will issue subpoenas and attempt to uncover the names of the scam artists, as well as identify support operations such as Web hosting services and mass e-mail services, he said.
Microsoft is using trademark law to target the phishers, who use the company's trademarks on their e-mail messages and Web sites, he said.
Asked if Microsoft expected to identify the creators of all 117 phishing schemes, Kornblum said the company hopes to find as many as possible. In a phishing lawsuit that the company filed in October 2003, it took several months to identify a suspect, but Microsoft eventually obtained a $3 million default judgment against an Iowa man.
"Will we catch all 117?" Kornblum said. "I don't know. It'll definitely be a learning experience."
Microsoft said it has taken action to shut down more than 1,700 phishing operations targeting its services since January 2004.
In addition to the phishing lawsuits, Microsoft joined forces with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the National Consumers League to educate consumers about phishing attacks. The groups showed examples of e-mail phishing attacks at the news conference, and Susan Grant, vice president and public policy director of the National Consumers League, noted that her organization has heard reports of telephone phishing schemes.
Gartner Inc. in 2004 estimated phishing cost consumers $2 billion a year, and the phenomenon seems to be growing, said Jacqueline Beauchere, business strategy manager at Microsoft. She called phishing the "international cybercrime of choice" in recent years.
In February, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced the Anti-Phishing Act of 2005, which prohibits Web pages set up