In the United States, a Russian hacker is being tried. He’s going to prison for 14 years.
The Russian hacker, Peter Levashov, was detained in Spain in April 2017. Levashov was handed over to the US authorities in early 2018. Now the US attorney is demanding that the court pronounce a sentence – a term from 12 and a half months to 14 years and eight months. Peter Levashov, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, is accused of creating and distributing botnet networks, and is also charged with sending spam, DDoS attacks and stealing cryptocurrency. After the extradition of a Russian hacker from Spain to the United States, Levashov pleaded guilty and testified.
A botnet is a computer network that is remotely controlled; hackers spread viruses, spam, spy programs, ransomware programs and trojans through it. Usually, even anti-virus programs do not always manage to detect them, and what to talk about the victim already – people for years do not guess about the availability of spyware, they will not change the Operating System by kA, and up to that point the infected PC is part of such a network.
Photo: From the personal archive of the Levashov family
According to the US Department of Justice and in accordance with the evidence presented to the court, the Russian hacker created three of the most famous botnets in the history of cybercrime:
– Storm Worm;
– Waledac;
– Kelihos.
This software helped Peter Levashov Collect personal information about users, their accounts in social networks, access cryptocurrency wallets, and access cryptocurrency exchanges.
The prosecutor voiced a figure of $4 million, which the Russian hacker received in Bitcoin and Ethereum, which Peter Levashov received thanks to his illegal activities. This amount was proposed by the prosecutor as an aggravating circumstance, and 15 people became victims of the fraudster. The prosecutor also added that the hacker acted consciously, with knowledge of the case and acted deliberately, possessing all the technical knowledge to organize such an act. The accused pleaded guilty in at least four episodes and gave detailed information about these crimes. Levashov will be sentenced on July 20, 2021.
The United States very often accuses Russian hackers of any cybercrime attacks by hackers have become a favorite topic of conversations between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. At a meeting of heads of state, the American leader recalled the need to take measures against cybercrime ransomware. After such a statement, the REvil hacker team disappeared from the darknet.
Recall that in mid-July, the US Department of State promised payments of up to $10 million for providing informative reports on any location of hackers who commit cybercrime related to key objects of the country. Follow all the news from the crypto industry with us. We publish only high-quality and interesting material. We wish you good luck and calm work!
