Microsoft gets tough with spammers

Microsoft has taken action in a lawsuit against a company that it thinks infiltrated the privacy of Windows Live Messenger users to conduct a spam campaign among contacts on users’ lists.

(In terms of instant messaging spamming is often referred to as spimming.)

FunMobile, which is based in Hong Kong, and its US subsidiary were named as defendants in the lawsuit that alleges the companies used instant messaging devices to get people to fill in web pages with sensitive details on a third party service that looks official, or at times even similar to a Microsoft support page.

According to the Microsoft complaint, once the information was gathered it was used to spam users’ contact lists again.

Microsoft claimed that the process of spamming creates three problems for the company: that it overburdens the software producer’s computer systems with spam traffic, ruined the instant messaging service for some users, and violated the privacy of users who mistakenly gave away their login credentials.

According to Microsoft it decided to launch the lawsuit to protect the 330 million users who regularly access the Windows Live Messenger system.

Microsoft has taken other spamming companies and malware threats to court before going as far as to offer a cyber bounty on malware creators who are discovered and brought to justice.

The most popular case was in February 2009 when Microsoft announced a $250,000 reward for the discovery of the Conficker virus creator.

On its Issue Blog Microsoft urged users not to give out their log-in information to anyone including messages that may appear to be from Microsoft itself, as this is a popular attack method of the phishers and spammers.