Threat Management

U.S. extradites bulletproof hosting service operator

SecurityWeek reports that the U.S. has extradited Mihai Ionut Paunescu, a Romanian and Latvian national who has been charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for being the operator of the bulletproof hosting service leveraged by the Gozi banking trojan. Paunescu, also known as Virus, allegedly operated a service that facilitated the distribution of the Gozi, SpyEye, and Zeus trojans, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. "Bulletproof hosts provided cyber criminals using the Gozi Virus with the critical online infrastructure they needed, such as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and computer servers, in a manner designed to enable them to preserve their anonymity," said the Justice Department in a statement. More than one million systems around the world, including 40,000 computers in the U.S., have been impacted by the Gozi banking trojan, which has bank account information exfiltration and anti-detection features.

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