Tech CEO Sentenced to 5 Years in IP Address Scheme
Summary: Amir Golestan, the 40-year-old CEO of Charleston, S.C.-based Micfo LLC, was sentenced to five years in prison for wire fraud after using a network of phony companies and fake identities to obtain more than 735,000 IP addresses from ARIN. He pleaded guilty in November 2021 to 20 counts of wire fraud, one for each payment made by the shell companies, and prosecutors estimated the addresses were valued at between $10 million and $14 million.
What you should know: Golestan was ordered to pay nearly $77,000 in restitution to ARIN for its work assisting prosecutors, against addresses valued at $10 million to $14 million at the low end - a gap that raises the question of whether the penalty deters anyone else from treating scarce IPv4 blocks as a fraud target.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
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