The man behind Scan4you, a service to help hackers determine the allusiveness of their malware, was convicted in a U.S. federal court.
Ruslans Bondars, 37, a of the former USSR who had been residing in Riga, Latvia, Wednesday was convicted of one count of conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and one count of computer intrusion with intent to cause damage and aiding and abetting, according to a DoJ press release.
“Ruslans Bondars helped hackers test and improve the malware they then used to inflict hundreds of millions of dollars in losses on American companies and consumers,” Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan said in the release.
Scan4you's services were unique in that unlike other legitimate antivirus scanning services, informed its users that they could upload files anonymously and promised not to share information about the uploaded files with the antivirus community.
Bondars operated Scan4you, from at least 2009 until 2016 and at its height, the service was one of the largest services of its kind with thousands of users. The service helped develop some of the most prolific malware known to the FBI such as “Citadel” which infected over 11 million computers worldwide, including in the United States, and resulted in over $500 million in fraud-related losses
Bondars is scheduled for sentencing Sept. 21.
