Estonian gets prison in cyberscam that infected 4M computers

NEW YORK – An Estonian businessman has been sentenced in New York to over seven years in prison for his role in a cyberscam that infected 4 million computers in over 100 countries.

Vladimir Tsastsin was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Richard Kaplan in Manhattan. The 35-year-old Tsastsin has already served nearly five years of the sentence.

Kaplan called the scam that infected over a half million computers in the United States alone an “extraordinarily outrageous” scheme.

Computers infected in the U.S. included some belonging to government agencies, including NASA. Other infected computers were at educational institutions, non-profit organizations and commercial businesses. Individuals were also affected.

Related: 3 Estonian men get over 3 years in prison for cyberfraud infecting over 4M computers worldwide

Computers were infected with software that disabled anti-virus protections and steered users to other websites.

Before sentencing, Tsastsin apologized for “stupidity and poor judgment.”

Jason Contant

Jason has been an award-winning journalist with Canadian Underwriter for more than a decade, including the past three years as associate editor and, before that, as digital editor for seven years.