Original URL: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/05/04/russian_vxer_conviction/
Kazakh heavy metal virusmonger avoids jail
Slapped wrist for axe man
Posted in Software & Security, 4th May 2006 14:00 GMT
A former heavy metal guitarist has escaped jail after been convicted of running websites that distributed an estimated 4,000 different computer viruses.
Sergey Kazachkov, the former (http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=51794) lead guitarist of Kazakhstan rockers DLM turned science student, received a two year suspended sentence after confessing to running a brace of virus exchange sites, along with creating malware himself.
A Russian court also imposed a one year probation order on the miscreant.
Some Russian reports claimed that Kazachkov, of Voronezh in central Russia, created the infamous PC-thrashing Chernobyl virus. However, as anti-virus firm Sophos points out, Kazachkov only offered Chernobyl as a download along with numerous other items of malicious code. The author of Chernobyl (AKA CIH) was Chen Ing-Hau, a Taiwanese student, who was arrested by police in 2000 but never prosecuted.
Kazachkov's prosecution has a local precedent. In November 2004, a member of the international 29A virus-writing group was convicted of creating the Stepan (http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/w32stepanb.html) and Gastropod (http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:-xVgxWtT3acJ:pferrie.tripod.com/vb/gastropod.pdf+Gastropod+%2B+Symantec&hl=en&start=3) viruses. Eugene Suchkov, from the little-known Russian republic of Udmurtia, posted live code for the viruses alongside the source code necessary to create variants onto a number of underground virus exchange websites. Neither of these viruses spread. Eugene (AKA Whale) was fined 3,000 roubles (then equivalent to approximately $105). ®