A US court has sentenced a Latvian national to nearly three years in prison for providing internet services to hackers who targeted users of a website operated by a newspaper in the state of Minnesota, the Department of Justice announced in a press release on Thursday.
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th September, 2018) A US court has sentenced a Latvian national to nearly three years in prison for providing internet services to hackers who targeted users of a website operated by a newspaper in the state of Minnesota, the Department of Justice announced in a press release on Thursday.
"Peteris Sahurovs aka 'Piotrek' and 'Sagade,' 29, was sentenced to 33 months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud," the release said. "Sahurovs will be removed from the United States to Latvia following his prison sentence."
Sahurovs admitted that from February 2010 to September 2010, he registered domain Names, provided bullet-proof hosting services, and gave technical support to a "scareware" scheme.
The scareware caused visitors to the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper's website to experience slow system performance, unwanted pop-ups and total system failure, the release noted.
Website visitors would then receive a fake "Windows Security Alert" pop-up informing them that their computer had been infected with a virus and another pop-up that falsely represented that they needed to purchase the "Antivirus Soft," a bogus computer program to fix their security issues, at a price of $49.95.
