Convicted SpyEye virus creator gets 9 years in prison

Aleksandr Panin, the 27-year-old Russian creator behind the malware banking Trojan that allowed cybercriminals to infect millions of computers and drain bank accounts worldwide, has been sentenced to nine and half years in a US federal prison. The US Justice Department said on 20 April that his accomplice, Algerian Hamza Bendelladj, who sold versions of SpyEye online and used it to steal financial information, was sentenced to 15 years.