Tuesday, April 01, 2008 10:15 AM
sandi
News: Malware victim tries in vain to punish its source
It has been reported that Joseph Bochner's lawsuit against a some people allegedly behind the distribution of "Winfixer" type software has been dropped.
I have correspondeded several times with Joseph over the past year or so, and am disappointed for him. You'll see from the article that one of the accused, James Reno, was never served and as for the other one, Marc Cohen, well, he simply ignored the lawsuit and didn't file an answer to the complaint.
Note this paragraph:
"The files indicated that WinAntiVirus sales figures averaged about $10,000 a day, and during one month, daily revenue reached about $30,000 - about 1,000 people a day duped into paying for something they didn't need. Collectively, that meant the alleged scammers were taking in at least a few million dollars per year from WinAntiVirus alone."
I have heard *unconfirmed* reports that the Winfixer type software (that is, the fraudware family as a whole, not just Reno and Cohen alone) could have pulled in as much as $130 million. That's a hell of a lot of cash.
cite: http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_8668679?nclick_check=1
cite: http://origin.mercurynews.com/business/ci_8668679
Filed under: Vulnerabilities, Security, safety and privacy on the Internet, viruses and exploits