Identity Theft News

Man gets four years for phishing scam

Thursday, March 26, 2009

A 25-year-old man from West Haven, Connecticut was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with access devices.

The authorities said Charlie Blount Jr. was part of a "sophisticated, multipronged phishing scheme targeting users of AOL," SCMagazineus.com reports.

Blount committed identity theft after reportedly sending out spam emails to "thousands" of AOL users in the form of electronic greeting cards. If a user clicked to view the card, a trojan would be downloaded onto their machine, which prevented the user from logging back on to AOL without first entering personal financial information.

Users were reportedly asked to provide such data as their credit card, bank account and Social Security number.

According to prosecutors, Blount and his co-conspirators used the information to create fake debit cards to use in ATMs and to shop online. In 2005, Blount admitted to possessing one of the devices used to make the fake cards.

Organizations and SMBs can protect themselves from spam through email filtering as well as incorporating phishing protection into their network security.ADNFCR-1765-ID-19093800-ADNFCR

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