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The Alleged Author of a NASA-Hacking Virus Will Be Extradited to the U.S.
Latvia has agreed to extradite Deniss Calovskis, one of three alleged authors of the “Gozi virus,” to the United States. Calovskis is facing up to 67 years in prison for his role in the creation and spread of the “Gozi virus” which infected at least a million computers, including 40,000 in American businesses government offices, even 160 computers at NASA, resulting in the theft of tens of millions of dollars beginning in 2005.The Gozi virus was an international collaboration between the Latvian Calovskis, nicknamed "Miami," the Russian Nikita "76" Kuzmin, and the Romanian Mihai Ionut "Virus" Paunescu. Paunescu is fighting extradition from Romania where he has been in custody since November. Kuzmin was arrested while visiting the United States in 2010. A similar fate befell the Russian hacker Dmitri Smilianets who was arrested while sight seeing in the US and is now facing charges for the “largest hacking and data breach scheme ever prosecuted in the US.”In a statement announcing the indictments last January, US Attorney Preet Bhrara described the Gozi as “a Trojan horse for computers.” The virus was disguised as a PDF, but when it was opened it unleashed malicious software. Once inside the electronic city walls, I guess, the software looked for e-banking information like passwords and account numbers. It also could mimic a welcome page to victims’ banking websites, and prompted them to give sensitive information like Social Security information, pin numbers and date of birth.The extradition is a bit of surprise because as recently as July 30, the Latvian foreign minister said he would rather Calovskis was tried in Latvia. The minister said he thought the punishment in the US would be disproportionate to the alleged crimes and also that, since Calovskis had never been to the US, it wasn’t clearly in the American jurisdiction.But to the federal prosecution, the extradition–and likely the harsh sentencing–is part of the point. “Cyber criminals believe that their online anonymity and their distance from New York render them safe from prosecution,” said Bharara. “Nothing could be further from the truth, as [these] charges demonstrate.”