Microsoft sues alleged IM spammers, phishers

Microsoft is bringing out the big guns to combat instant message spam and phishing attacks done to users of its Live Messenger network. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant filed a civil lawsuit Thursday in King County Superior Court in Seattle against Funmobile, Mobilefunster, and several individuals, who Microsoft says is responsible for the intentional misuse of the service to gain the personal information of its users.

In the suit (which is embedded below), Microsoft cites a multitude of attacks including IMs that appear to be coming from users they know, as well as phishing attacks that mimic the look and feel of an outside service, or an official Microsoft support page.

Microsoft says that the successful use of these tactics has let third parties obtain these users' personal account information, then exploit it by sending mass spam and phishing messages to the contacts of users whose accounts have been breached.

In a post on Microsoft's security blog Microsoft on the Issues, Tim Cranton who is Microsoft's associate general counsel of Internet safety enforcement, said the company hopes the suit will accomplish three things. One is to stop companies and individuals from continuing the attacks through injunction. Microsoft also intends to "recover monetary damages," as well as send a message to other parties who would try similar tactics.

Microsoft counts the number of its Windows Live Messenger users at more than 320 million, although the suit makes no mention of how many of those users have been affected by the privacy attacks. However, it does say that the attacks have put a strain on the servers that run the service, as well as its security teams, which have to monitor and combat incoming attacks. In the meantime, the company is urging users of its Live Messenger service and other Live services not to give other people their log-in information.

Microsoft Corporation v. Funmobile, et. al." case number 09-2-21247-3

[monkeyfun14]

Anyone ever find out why court documents are ussually overly long and the text is complicated to translate?

[monkeyfun14]

Btw the lawyer Microsoft is one of the best in the US gl whoever.

[viper396]

Legal documents are always verbose to insure all details are covered completely. Otherwise, some simple missing detail, technical omission, even a misspelling can be used by the other party to get the case thrown out.

[Random_Walk]

Cool. A handful down, 10,000+ more to go.

[jessiethe3rd]

Every little bit helps - goes to show that Microsoft does actually care about its users and their privacy.

[Random_Walk]

No, they care about their bottom line and reputation. This is certainly not a bad thing to do as a corporation (depending on your actions), but pretending that they care about anything else but the shareholders is ludicrous.

[rapier1]

The same is pretty much true for every publicly traded corporation.

[Vegaman_Dan]

See now, this is just proof taht Microsoft is evil and should be shut down. They are intentionally going after a group who simply wants to share with you some information they think you may be interested in. Why should Microsoft stop these people from sending unsolicited messages whenever / wherever they want?

Foo on you, Microsoft for trying to defend end users.

(And I certainly hope people can see the parody there)

[Perry_Clease]

The one in six people who have responded to spam will agree with you :)

[Random_Walk]

I can see the parody, but you certainly made a whole lot of bad assumptions in constructing it.

(hint: biting sarcasm bites because it ostensibly holds some truth in it. I doubt you would/could find anyone who would cheer on spammers/phishers and the like...)

[Vegaman_Dan]

I don't think anyone would support spam or cheer for it unless they were profiting by it in some manner.

[terminalblue]

i have stopped using messenger because of the spam

[biffhenerson]

Make an example of them. Seize all assets and Lock em up!

[shycelticwitch]

Sometimes being the biggest kid on the block means you just get hit harder when the little guys start fighting back. I would call this issue the LEAST of MIcrosoft's problems. They really should be concerned about the mental health of it's founder. After all... he publicly announced he can stop a hurricane.

ROFLMMFAO

[rapier1]

Actually the process he suggested may be feasible and a potential source of profit. Lets say you have a Cat 3 bearing down on Central Florida. You can estimate the damages in the range of several hundreds of millions if not more. Insurance companies would have to payout on a significant portion of those claims. So, why not just hire a fleet of cold water pumping barges to reduce the strength of the hurricane for a few million and save yourself some cash?

[shellcodes_coder]

They are doing the right thing