Microsoft leads battle against online fraud

Law enforcement agency Interpol and Microsoft this week announced a crackdown on criminals using the internet to steal information and identities.

Microsoft is filing lawsuits against more than 50 people in Europe suspected of committing online fraud by creating spoof MSN and Hotmail web sites.

The software giant plans to take legal action against suspected phishers in the UK, France, Germany and Turkey. They are believed to have built fake web sites to trick people into giving out email addresses, passwords, credit card details and bank account information.

The prosecutions, part of the Global Phishing Enforcement Initiative (GPEI) announced in Brussels on Monday, will help tackle the growing issue of internet crime, says Bernhard Otupal, crime intelligence officer at Interpol’s financial and hi-tech crime unit.

‘We are dealing with new sorts of crime. It’s not just phishing, but also pharming and keylogging. It’s new technology that we are trying to deal with using old laws,’ said Otupal.

‘Law enforcement can’t deal with the problem alone and neither can the IT industry. We need to tackle it together.’

EuroISPA, which represents 900 internet service providers in Europe, will also take part in the GPEI project and co-operate in taking down spoof web sites.

Interpol is trying to persuade governments to sign up to the Council of Europe’s cyber crime convention, which sets out an international approach to prosecuting phishers, hackers and virus writers. Common laws and policing methods will make it easier to track down and prosecute criminals, says Otupal.

‘The big problem is that criminals take phishing pages down and move them from one country to another,’ he said.

‘We have seen cases where in a very short period of time, a site has moved through 25 different countries, which means 25 different legislations and police systems to be dealt with.’

Microsoft plans to announce a further 51 prosecutions by the end of June.

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