back to article Russian anti-antivirus security tester pleads guilty to certifying attack code

A Russian coder who ran and franchised a dark web service that optimized malware and checked it against antivirus engines has pled guilty to one charge of conspiracy and one charge of aiding and abetting computer intrusion. Jurijs Martisevs was arrested while on a trip to Latvia and extradited to the US after the authorities …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Minimum wage?

    " $125,000 in profits that he earned over the eight-year period". If that were a full time job, that would be around $7.50 an hour. Who says crime doesn't pay?

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Minimum wage?

      >Who says crime doesn't pay?

      Well I was a little surprised just how small the profits were - was it really worth circa $15,000 pa?

  2. Private Citizen.AU

    US federal prison vs. ???

    I assume he will be sentenced to a US Federal prison, I assume that is better prison than his local prison?

    I am sure that there would be a few state players wanting to bypass antivirus systems, If he is really good at what he does he will probably leave prison with a job offer.

  3. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Jurijs Martisevs

    That is not a Russian name. More likely Latvian. The s at the end of Jurij is the giveaway.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Jurijs Martisevs

      "That is not a Russian name. More likely Latvian."

      All the badguys are Russian now. Get with the program.

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Re: Jurijs Martisevs

        All the badguys are Russian now. Get with the program.

        Yessir. Proceding to join the chorus of howler monkeys throwing some dung in the shape of scary looking formulae which frankly make no f*** sense to me (*).

        (*)I spent half of my MSc fighting with some rather temperamental phospororganic synthesis reactions. The experience is best described as being a pig trying to conquer a watermelon (with no tools to crack it). So maybe... I am a bit biased...

    2. Aodhhan

      Re: Jurijs Martisevs

      Yes, because nobody ever names their child with a name originating from another country.

      ...where do these people come from?

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Re: Jurijs Martisevs

        ...where do these people come from?

        Not from two countries which could not see eye to eye for the last 1000 years and where hunting the peasants from the other country was the favourite noblemen sport during the middle ages. ON BOTH SIDEs - they are both guilty of that, it is simply a matter which one as on top at the moment.

        A Russian is more likely to call his child Ossama Bin Laden than Jurijs. In addition to that the family name which also uses non-Russian spelling.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Jurijs Martisevs

      "That is not a Russian name. More likely Latvian. The s at the end of Jurij is the giveaway."

      Lets see, on a trip to Latvia....maybe visiting relatives perhaps?

      Next you'll be telling us people called Singh, Kowalski or Petit can't be British..

    4. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

      Re: Jurijs Martisevs

      "That is not a Russian name. More likely Latvian. The s at the end of Jurij is the giveaway."

      Yes and no. It's a Russian name in a Latvian literation. He most certainly lived in Latvia and got Latvian documents.

      Yuriy Martyshev would be an English way to spell his name.

    5. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

      Re: Latvian names

      Same goes for the other guy, Ruslans Bondars. He's also an ethnic Russian with Latvian ID. Most likely had a surname Bondarchuk (or Bondarenko) and shortened it to Bondar.

      Although I'm wondering why the article calls them just Russians - usual convention is to refer to citizenship, not ethnicity, and in murkier cases elaborate it as "a Latvian of Russian ethnicity" or something like that.

  4. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
    WTF?

    Huh?

    So how does their service differ from Virus Total?

    1. Jon Smit

      Re: Huh?

      Virus Total is a honey pot ?

    2. ThatOne Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Huh?

      > So how does their service differ from Virus Total?

      Intention?

  5. Fading
    Pirate

    Provided tech support?

    Which was probably better quality than the tech support provided by big name corporations.... Much as I loathe malware and especially ransom-ware I am strangely heartened that you could get evil tech support if you needed it.

  6. Marty McFly Silver badge
    Childcatcher

    Get a better lawyer

    Seems they could have beat this one with a smarter lawyer. Cover it with some sort of rhetoric about "testing" for "research purposes".

    In reality this is no different from what thousands of IT security admins do every day. Something turns up so they test it against AV brand A, AV brand B, AV brand C, etc to see who picks it up.

    Yeah, no doubt these clowns were grubby dirty. It just seems this sets a legal precedent that could negatively impact legitimate security researchers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Get a better lawyer

      Intent.

      A security researcher doesn't / should't go, yes that's showing up as a virus, try again.

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