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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

Spam Kingpin Peter Levashov Gets Time Served

Summary: A federal judge in Connecticut sentenced Russian spam kingpin Peter "Severa" Levashov to time served, freeing him after roughly three years in custody under three years of supervised release instead of the 121 to 151 months federal guidelines called for. Levashov, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to four felony counts, created and leased the Storm worm and the Waledac and Kelihos botnets, renting out spam runs at $200 to $500 per million emails and infecting more than 110,000 Windows PCs with Kelihos alone.

Bottom line: Judge Robert Chatigny concluded the guidelines overstated the seriousness of crimes the government valued at approximately $7 million in damages and ill-gotten gains, and deferred ruling on any fine - a outcome former federal prosecutor Mark Rasch says tends to diminish the deterrent effect.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Malware
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