Cybercrime Kingpin Pleads Guilty
Summary: Vladimir Tsastsin, 35, who ran an Estonian web hosting and advertising operation called Rove Digital, pleaded guilty in New York to wire fraud and computer intrusion charges for a scheme that infected more than four million PCs in over 100 countries between 2007 and 2011. The DNSChanger malware altered DNS settings on infected Mac and Windows machines, replaced legitimate ads with ones that paid Rove Digital, hijacked referral commissions, and blocked victims from downloading software updates and visiting security sites; U.S. authorities allege the group made more than $14 million.
Bottom line: The operation reached four million machines across 100 countries by rewriting DNS settings, a layer most endpoint controls never inspect, and it kept victims from reaching the security sites that might have cleaned them. Tsastsin faces up to 20 years on the wire fraud conspiracy count and five on the computer intrusion count, with sentencing set for October 14, 2015.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
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