SpyEye malware inventor pleads guilty to bank fraud
The alleged architect of the bank-hacking malware SpyEye, which is said to have infected 1.4 million computers, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud. The US Department of Justice announced Tuesday that Russian national Aleksandr Andreevich Panin was the primary developer and distributor of SpyEye.
"As several recent and widely reported data breaches have shown, cyber-attacks pose a critical threat to our nation's economic security," US Attorney of the Northern District of Georgia Sally Quillian Yates said in a statement. "Today's plea is a great leap forward in our campaign against those attacks. Panin was the architect of a pernicious malware known as 'SpyEye' that infected computers worldwide. He commercialized the wholesale theft of financial and personal information. And now he is being held to account for his actions. Cyber criminals be forewarned: you cannot hide in the shadows of the Internet. We will find you and bring you to justice."
