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Saturday, 27.04.2024, 00:53
Latvian charged in malware scheme in Minneapolis,
Peteris Sahurovs,
28, was charged in 2011 in US District Court in Minneapolis with wire fraud,
computer fraud and conspiracy. He was arrested in Latvia in June 2011 but was
released and later fled. He was caught in Poland last November. At one time,
Sahurovs was the FBI's fifth most-wanted cybercriminal, and a reward of up to
USD 50,000 was offered for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
According to the US Attorney's office, Sahurovs and others
created a phony advertising agency and claimed they represented an American
hotel chain that wanted to buy advertising on startribune.com.
When the ad began running online, the alleged conspirators
changed the computer code in the ad to infect website users' computers with a
virus.
The indictment said the malware caused users' computers to
freeze up and then generated a series of pop-up warnings to try to trick users
into buying purported "antivirus" software to fix the problems. The
software "unfroze" the computers and stopped the pop-ups but the malware
stayed on the computers.
Users who didn't buy the "antivirus" software
found that all of their information, data and files stored on their computers
became inaccessible. The prosecutor's office said the scheme generated more
than USD 2 mln for Sahurovs and his co-conspirators.
Sahurovs is charged with two counts of wire fraud and one
count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unauthorized access to a
protected computer. He made his first court appearance Monday.