AOL Sues Three Phishing Gangs

AOL said Tuesday it had filed three lawsuits against alleged phishing gangs in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The ISP is accusing the groups of violating the state's new anti-phishing statute, as well as federal trademark and anti-spam laws, and is asking for $18 million in damages.

The suit claims both AOL and CompuServe members received e-mails that attempted to trick them into visiting fake Web sites that were set up to fool users into divulging personal information. This information included AOL screen names, passwords and credit card numbers.

It is believed that at least two of the groups operated from outside the United States -- in Germany and Romania. AOL said it stored "tens of thousands" of e-mails allegedly sent by the groups.

AOL senior vice president and General Counsel Curtis Lu said that phishing attacks are becoming more sophisticated, and the ISP was doing all it could to protect its customers. According to Lu, the spammers attempted to impersonate prominent Internet brands, including AOL.

"We are going to continue to play our part in protecting the sanctity and integrity of the email experience of the web - and today's actions are a part of our ongoing, successful, and comprehensive antispam and anti-identity theft work," Lu added.

AOL blocks approximately 1.5 billion spam e-mails daily, which amounts to 80 percent of all e-mail traffic it receives. The company recently also launched a program that would block e-mails containing links to known phishing sites.

Furthermore, AOL has instituted a certified e-mail program using technology from Goodmail Systems. The program charges bulk mailers a fee to ensure passage through the company's strict spam filters.