Thursday, September 15, 2005

Japanese Phisher Gets Slapped on Wrist

Via Red Herring.

A Japanese man convicted of creating a fraudulent website to steal personal information was given a 22-month suspended sentence earlier this week, alarming security analysts who said Thursday the penalty is too soft and sets a bad precedent in the fight against scammers.

In Japan’s first case against phishing, Kazuma Yabuno, 42, was recently convicted of creating a website that tried to mimic Yahoo Japan by replacing the ‘h’ in the Yahoo with ‘f’ creating the name ‘Yafoo!’ The trick site’s name closely resembled the original and has the same pronunciation in Japanese.

Through the spoofed site, Mr. Yabuno proceeded to obtain account names and passwords of Yahoo members and gained illegal access to their email accounts.

A former computer systems engineer in Osaka, he was arrested in June and charged with violating copyright and unauthorized access. At the conviction, Judge Mitsuaki Takayama said that the sentencing took into account that Mr. Yabuno did not use the stolen information to commit other crimes.

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