Bredolab botnet creator gets 4 years in prison

    A court in Armenia convicted Russian hacker George Avanesov. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison under Part 3 of Art. 253 of the Criminal Code of Armenia (computer sabotage, associated with unauthorized access to a computer system, entailing reckless consequences). This is the first verdict for cybercrime in Armenia.

    The botnet created by Avanesov, known as Bredolab, was launched in mid-2009. Spamming and leasing botnet capacities for DDoS attacks brought the 27-year-old hacker up to 100,000 euros per month. The botnet sent up to three billion spam messages per day.

    In October 2010, Dutch police managed to gain controlover most of the botnet and go out to its creator. Avanesov was put on the international wanted list and was soon detained at the airport in Yerevan. However, the botnet has not yet been completely destroyed. According to Symantec , in 2011 7.5% of letters blocked by antivirus companies contained attachments with the Bredolab virus. It is assumed that Avanesov had an accomplice known as Birdie, his identity has not yet been established.

    Sources: securelist.com , BBC news


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