'Blackhole' Exploit Kit Author Gets 7 Years (krebsonsecurity.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A Moscow court this week convicted and sentenced seven hackers for breaking into countless online bank accounts -- including "Paunch," the nickname used by the author of the infamous "Blackhole" exploit kit. Once an extremely popular crimeware-as-a-service offering, Blackhole was for several years responsible for a large percentage of malware infections and stolen banking credentials, and likely contributed to tens of millions of dollars stolen from small to mid-sized businesses over several years. According to Russia's ITAR-TASS news network, Dmitry "Paunch" Fedotov was sentenced on April 12 to seven years in a Russian penal colony. In October 2013, the then 27-year-old Fedotov was arrested along with an entire team of other cybercriminals who worked to sell, develop and profit from Blackhole."He was helping a lot of gangs that were robbing Russian banks," Krebs tweeted, "They tend not to have a sense of humor about that."

Comments

seven years in a Russian penal colony

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

...seven years in a Russian penal colony, where he will be making pottery such as this:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a2/f3/8b/a2f38b160579995e875f515486aad47e.jpg

Two thoughts

[Okian Warrior]

Firstly, if he was rich enough to have a Porche (roughly $100K, depending on options), he was probably making a lot of money. A smart person could be putting that money away to become financially independent.

Trading 7 years for not having to work for the rest of your life sounds like a good trade to me.

(Assuming he was smart enough to sock away the money, assuming that it wasn't confiscated, and assuming he can tolerate Russian prison.)

Secondly, the guy who made the BlackHole exploit kit that cost businesses tens of millions of dollars got seven years, while Aaron Swartz was violating JSTOR's terms of service (and technically trespassing) and was charged with $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release.

(Apples and oranges, I know. Russians don't have a "sense of humor" when it comes to robbing businesses in other countries.)

Re:Two thoughts

[gtall]

So, trading 7 years of your life for stealing others money so you don't have to work the rest of your life sounds like a good trade to you? How about if someone got 7 years for stealing all of your money, would that be a fair trade? Oh, what, you don't have enough for him to not work the rest of his life? Okay, we'll prorate his sentence so something much more reasonable. If you are on Slashdot, you probably don't have a lot of money. Although it might seem a lot to you, I assure you that in the general scheme of things, it isn't. So let's give him...about....3 months. That should cover the crime, yes?

Your lack of ethics is illuminating.

Re:Stop being insulting

[Nidi62]

He'll be spending 7 years in a cushy resort while *working* for the FSB. His Cayenne is probably already there waiting, along with a 'companion' or two. If someone believe Putins' Russia would actually punish hackers instead of rewarding and employing them, that person is even too stupid to try and sell them the Brooklyn Bridge.

They stole from Russian banks. Of course they are going to be punished. The FSB might still recruit them afterwards, but the banks are going to want their pound of flesh first. They should have only target victims outside of Russia.