Connecticut: The Federal Prosecutor seeks a long prison sentence for a Russian hacker known internationally as a “Master Bot” on charges he operates the network of devices used to steal computer credentials, distribute spam emails and install malicious software.
Peter Levashov, 40, begged guilty in 2018 for a conspiracy, wire fraud, identity theft, and other accusations that he operated several computer networks hijacked, known as botnets, which were able to pump billions of spam emails.
The prosecutor asked that he was sentenced to Tuesday among 12 and 14 years in prison when he appeared through a teleconference before the US district judge Robert Chatigny in Connecticut.
In the argument of their written section, the Prosecutor said Levashov spent more than a decade of controlling botnets – including the only computer – to harvest the email address, login, and password from infected computers and also distributed malware and other malicious software.
“Lev Ashov uses botnets to send billions of spam messages, messages that range in the destructive potential of relatively harmless advertisements for e-mail messages used to do ‘pump and dump’ schemes, to e-mail messages that contain malicious links that spread malware such as viruses or ransomware, “US lawyer assistant Edward Chang wrote.
Chang said Levashov, also known as “Peter Severa,” operates three of the most famous botnets known as authority – worm storms, waledac, and kelihos.
At its peak, the storm worm is reported to send 57 million e-mail messages in one day, the prosecutor said.
Waledac can send 1.5 billion spam messages per day and keliho reportedly capable of sending 4 billion spam messages per day, he said.
Prosecutors say Levashov has also moderated online forums used to sell and trade stolen identities and credit card numbers.
Levashov was arrested in April 2017 while on vacation in Spain.
The arrest is one of the series that targets Russian Cybercriminals outside their homeland, which has no extradition agreements with the United States.
Russian authorities struggled extradition, but Levashov was finally transferred to the US.
He was sued in Connecticut because the New Haven FBI office investigated the case through the Cyber ​​Connecticut task force and several computers hijacked in this state, the authorities said.
His lawyer, in debating the time sentence was on duty, argued that Levashov hacking was not quite complicated to guarantee a harder sentence.
They also said he was humble, apologized and had suffered too much of his crime in the years since his arrest.
“In addition to the general weight of the federal charges, they have been spent in the two foreign countries, far from their families, where he doesn’t know anyone, and spend in the midst of a worldwide pandemic that has never happened before,” Prosecutor’s Office Defense Vadim Glozman wrote.
“Simply put, four and a half years this feels like immortality.”