"Romanian Man Accused of Distributing Gozi Virus Extradited to US"

A Romanian man accused of distributing a computer virus that hit over 1 million computers has recently been extradited to the US.  The suspect, 37-year-old Mihai Paunescu, allegedly ran a hosting service that helped distribute the Gozi virus, which caused tens of millions of dollars of financial losses worldwide.  Gozi was first discovered in 2007 and was able to go undetected as it stole bank account information from computers, 40,000 of which were in the US, with 140 belonging to NASA.   Gozi has been dubbed “one of the most financially destructive computer viruses in history” and was disguised as a PDF document that, when opened, secretly installed the virus on the victim’s computer.  Once installed, the Gozi virus, designed to be undetectable by anti-virus software, collected data to capture personal bank account information, including usernames and passwords.  This information was transmitted to computer servers controlled by cybercriminals, who used the details to transfer funds from victims’ bank accounts.  Paunescu has been charged with conspiring to commit computer fraud and wire fraud.  The US Department of Justice (DoJ) stated that Paunsecu has also allegedly enabled other cybercrimes, such as “distributing malware including the Zeus Trojan and the SpyEye Trojan, initiating and executing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and transmitting spam.”  Paunescu was initially arrested in Romania in December 2012 and released on bail, and he was arrested again in Colombia last year.  Paunescu is the latest arrest relating to the Gozi virus.  Nikita Kuzmin, the Russian who allegedly created the virus, was arrested in 2010 after traveling to a conference in the US and pleaded guilty the following year in an agreement with prosecutors.
 

Infosecurity reports: "Romanian Man Accused of Distributing Gozi Virus Extradited to US"