A Russian man has been put away for nearly four years for his part in the multi-million-dollar Ebury botnet campaign.
Maxim Senakh, 41, of Veliky Novgorod, was sentenced to 46 months in prison after pleading guilty in March to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
The Ebury botnet Senakh and his co-conspirators ran is said to have generated millions from click fraud and spam email campaigns, using tens of thousands of compromised servers around the world, especially in the US.
Senakh admitted creating accounts with domain registrars to help build out the Ebury botnet infrastructure and said he personally profited from traffic generated by the botnet.
“Working within a massive criminal enterprise, Maxim Senakh helped create a sophisticated infrastructure that victimized thousands of Internet users across the world,” said acting US attorney Gregory Brooker in a statement.
“As society becomes more reliant on computers, cybercriminals like Senakh pose a serious threat. This office, along with our law enforcement partners, are committed to detecting and prosecuting cybercriminals no matter where they reside.”
Senakh’s capture was another example of effective international law enforcement co-operation, with police in Finland eventually arresting him following his indictment in January 2015. He was then extradited to the US in February 2016.
The US Department of Justice has been on something of a roll of late, with cybercriminals Mark Vartanyan handed a five-year sentence last month for his part in developing the Citadel info-stealing malware.
However, the vast majority escape capture by ensuring they locate themselves in countries which don’t have extradition agreements with the US.
An analysis of infamous banking Trojan Svpeng earlier this week claimed the malware was designed not to work on Russian language PCs so that local law enforcement would turn a blind eye.