White House calls fake pharma website meeting

The US Government has organised a meeting to work out how to tackle the problem of illegitimate pharmaceutical websites.

A letter seen by US security guru Brian Krebs invites leaders of high-level internet domain name registrars and registries to the White House to talk about online crime and fraudulent pharmaceutical websites.

A White House Office of Management and Budget spokesperson confirmed to IT PRO that the event was going ahead, but could not provide any more details.

The letter, as seen on Krebs's blog, is addressed from White House senior adviser for intellectual property enforcement Andrew J Klein, inviting recipients to a meeting on 29 September to meet with senior officials.

"The purpose of this meeting is to discuss illegal activity taking place over the internet generally, and more specifically, voluntary protocols to address the illegal sale of counterfeit non-controlled prescription medications online," the letter reads.

Trust in online pharmaceutical services has been a key target for cyber criminals for many years now.

A Symantec Hosted Services report showed the third most spammed industry area in August was the chemical and pharmaceutical sector.

The sector was also the second most targeted industry for malware via email, with one in every 243.2 messages being blocked as malicious.

Tom Brewster is currently an associate editor at Forbes and an award-winning journalist who covers cyber security, surveillance, and privacy. Starting his career at ITPro as a staff writer and working up to a senior staff writer role, Tom has been covering the tech industry for more than ten years and is considered one of the leading journalists in his specialism.

He is a proud alum of the University of Sheffield where he secured an undergraduate degree in English Literature before undertaking a certification from General Assembly in web development.