Convicted SpyEye virus creator gets 9 years in prison
Aleksandr Panin, the 27-year-old Russian creator behind the malware banking Trojan that allowed cybercriminals to infect millions of computers and drain bank accounts worldwide, has been sentenced to nine and half years in a US federal prison. The US Justice Department said on 20 April that his accomplice, Algerian Hamza Bendelladj, who sold versions of SpyEye online and used it to steal financial information, was sentenced to 15 years.
"Until dismantled by the FBI, SpyEye was the preeminent malware banking Trojan from 2010-2012, used by a global syndicate of cybercriminals to infect over 50 million computers, causing close to $1 billion [£700m] in financial harm to individuals and financial institutions around the globe," the department said in a statement.
Released in 2009, SpyEye was a type of Trojan virus that secretly implanted itself onto a victim's computer to steal personal information including bank account details, credit card information, passwords and PINs. It also allowed hackers to trick victims into surrendering personal information using fake bank account pages, once the virus took over a computer. The stolen information was then relayed to criminals and the control server was used to access the victim's accounts.
