Alan Ralsky, the so-called “Godfather of spam”, has been sentenced to four years in jail for his role in a stock fraud scheme that earned him $2.7 million during the summer of 2005.
64-year-old Ralsky, of West Bloomfield, Michigan, was sentenced to 51 months in prison for a share price manipulation scam that ran between January 2004 and late 2005, when he was raided by the authorities.
To help them send millions of spam messages every day, Ralsky and his associates exploited a botnet of hijacked computers belonging to innocent internet users.
Although hardly ever seen today, at the time spam designed to manipulate stock prices (also known as “pump-and-dump scams”) was frequently encountered. However, it’s not as prevalent as it used to be, partly because of action taken by the SEC to shut them down, and partly – perhaps – because of the economic downturn.
However, at the time of Ralsky’s offences…
Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.
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