A Russian man faces up to 10 years in jail for spreading a computer virus that cost victims more than $500m (£401m).Mark Vartanyan, 29, developed and distributed the Citadel Trojan, whoch lets criminals steal bank account details and hold files to ransom.US prosecutors said it had infected about 11 million computers worldwide.He pleaded guilty to one count of computer fraud, in a court in Atlanta, after being extradited from Norway.Launched in 2011, Citadel was marketed on invitation-only, Russian-language internet forums used by cybercriminals.Its users had targeted the computer networks of major financial and government institutions around the world, prosecutors said.’Illicit functionality’Vartanyan admitted to the ”development, improvement, maintenance and distribution” of Citadel between 2012 and 2014 while living in Ukraine and Norway.Operating under the alias Kolypto, he uploaded ”numerous electronic files” that consisted of Citadel malware, components, updates and patches, as well as customer information.
Källa: Russian man pleads guilty over $500m malware scam – BBC News
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