Heavy prison sentence for Russian cyber criminals

In Russia, two cyber criminals who stole millions of euros from bank accounts through malware have been sentenced to five and eight years in prison. This is reported by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

It would be two brothers who were arrested by the Russian and Ukrainian secret services last year. The two gang leaders are said to be responsible for infecting countless computers with the Carberp Trojan. Due to the scale of the fraud, the judge sentenced the gang leaders to five and eight years in prison. The Russian and Ukrainian secret services have arrested a total of 20 people for their involvement in the case.

The criminals stole login and transaction data for internet banking via infected computers. The Russian Interior Ministry calls Carberp one of the largest botnets aimed at stealing financial data.

The gang is said to have stolen a total of around 200 million euros. According to Security.nl, the gang initially targeted internet users and companies in other countries, but later computers in Russia and Ukraine were also attacked. Exactly which companies were attacked has not been disclosed.