Spam email operator’s backup leaks 1.4 billion addresses

River City Media (RCM) known as one of the largest spam operations in the world has exposed its entire operation to the public, allowing a data breach of its backups that included a database of 1.4 billion email accounts. Some of the records were combined with real names, user IP addresses, and often physical address. According to Chris Vickery, MacKeeper’s Security Researcher who discovered the leak, the CRM operation was responsible for up to a billion spam emails daily using sophisticated techniques to avoid anti-spam measures. Leaked documents also included backups of CRM’s internal communication and operational details. The case was handed over to the law enforcement and the most severe harmful code was also provided to affected IT companies and anti-spam organisations.