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Latvian Man Pleads Guilty in Worldwide Computer Virus Case

Latvian Man Pleads Guilty in Worldwide Computer Virus Case 2kr2q

By Associated Press | Updated: 5 September 2015 11:34 IST

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A Latvian computer code writer who helped create a virus that spread to more than a million computers worldwide and corrupted some at Nasa may be returning home soon after pleading guilty to a federal charge on Friday. 705u12

Deniss Calovskis, soft-spoken and bespectacled, pleaded guilty in Manhattan to conspiring to commit computer intrusion. The 30-year-old hacker faces a likely prison term between 18 months and two years at a December sentencing, according to the of a plea deal with the US government. Before the plea, he had faced charges that could have carried a prison term of up to 67 years upon conviction.

Calovskis itted that he was hired to write code for the Gozi virus.

"I knew what I was doing was against the law," Calovskis told a magistrate judge.

Arrested in Latvia in 2012, he was not extradited to the US until February.

Prosecutors said the virus from 2005 to 2012 infected more than 1 million computers worldwide and 40,000 US computers, including 190 at the National Aeronautics and Space istration. Other computers were damaged in , Great Britain, Poland, , Finland, Italy, Turkey and elsewhere.

When US Attorney Preet Bharara announced arrests in the case in 2013, he said it was a "wake-up call to banks and consumers" needing to know that the threat of cyber-crime was not going away.

A 25-year-old Russian, Nikita Kuzmin, pleaded guilty to computer intrusion and fraud charges in Manhattan in May 2011, itting his role in creating the virus.

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