Latvian programmer admits he wrote controversial Gozi Trojan

The maker of the controversial Gozi trojan, which eight years ago stole millions of euros from people who were online banking, has pleaded guilty. With this, the hacker from Latvia hopes for a reduced sentence.

It concerns Deniss Calovskis, who was extradited from Latvia to the United States two years ago. The hacker would be partly responsible for the development of the Gozi virus, which was used to loot money from people who were online banking. De Let wrote code for executing ‘browser injects’, which can be used to manipulate the content of web pages.

When the United States took measures against the virus in 2013, it turned out that more than a million computers worldwide were already infected with Gozi. This involved at least 40,000 computers in the US, 160 of which belonged to the NASA space agency, according to Reuters.

The police arrested Calovskis in 2012. The United States requested his extradition, but initially the Latvian foreign minister opposed it. He would find the prison sentence of up to 67 years disproportionate. Still, a majority of the Latvian government ruled that the hacker should be extradited after sufficient evidence was provided.

In a substantive hearing of the lawsuit, 30-year-old Calovskis has now admitted to having helped create the malware. He said he was hired and knew what he was doing was against the law. Calovskis will be sentenced on December 14. He has agreed with the American judiciary not to appeal if he is sentenced to two years in prison or less.

In addition to the Let, the creator of the malware and someone who provided support services were also arrested. They are respectively a Russian and a Romanian. They have been arrested and are currently in custody.