A Dutch spammer has been fined €75,000 (£49,500) in the same week as two Dutch hackers received jail sentences for recruiting tens of thousands of home PCs for criminal ends.

Opta, the telecoms watchdog in the Netherlands, has fined a spammer - known only as Mr X - who had rented 10 servers containing millions of email addresses from US company Managed.com, and used between 600 and 700 zombie computers in the US to send out billions of spam emails on behalf of foreign websites.

The spammer is reported to have earned at least €52,000 (£34,400) over the course of 14 months.

Two Dutch hackers also received jail sentences this week for commandeering tens of thousands of home PCs for criminal ends.

The criminals used a zombie network, thought to be one of the largest ever seen, to commit identity theft, capturing keypresses from millions of innocent users' PCs and stealing personal information.

The 20-year old leader of this gang has been sentenced to two years in prison and his 28-year old accomplice received 18 months.

In both cases the men have already served time in custody equivalent to their sentences and will not have to spend any more time in jail. They have also been fined €9,000 (£6,000) and €4,000 (£2,650) respectively by the court in the Dutch town of Breda.

'For home PC users, understanding the threats and how to protect against them can seem like Double Dutch, but this lack of awareness can lead to innocent people's computers being hijacked and used as part of a zombie network without them even noticing,' said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

'The Dutch authorities should be commended for taking a stand against this kind of activity, but many victims may feel that the sentences are not tough enough.'

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Further Reading:

Dutch botnet gang facing jail

Fat Spaniard faces jail for online bank hack

MPs back calls for identity theft jail sentences