757,000 IPv4 Addresses Used in Fraud Scheme
In Charleston, South Carolina, a cloud business owner found himself and his company Micfo, in US Federal Court due to an alleged scheme that involved the acquirement of over 757,000 IPv4 IP addresses for spam use.
The allocations were alleged to be obtained fraudulently from ARIN, the American Registry of Internet Numbers.
The scheme points back to a start date of 2014, and ARIN caught on in 2018 when an application to have the IPv4 addresses returned. Those IP addresses had a total market value of up to $14,397,400 according to prosecutors.
ARIN was awarded a return of the IP addresses by an arbitrator in the case and have been returned to their possession. Micfo and its owner accused in the scheme have been ordered to pay $350,000 in costs associated with the action.
Micfo was listed by Spamhaus's registry of Known Spam Operations when several of the IPv4 blocks were sold to spammers. Some of those ended up being blacklisted IP addresses. Fake websites and falsified officers of the business were part of the involvement that the owner is accused of.
As a first ever move by the Registration Services Agreement from ARIN, this move shows that spam is having a harder time of finding the technology it needs to operate with. ARIN has also reported an increase of attempts to obtain IPv4 IP addresses in cases similar to this.
The case is still due to go to court, however the owner of Micfo is facing 20 counts of wire fraud. Each count has a 20 year maximum prison sentence.
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