Estonian Man Admits Involvement in DNS Changer Malware Scheme [Reuters]

Valeri Aleksejev, a 32-year-old Estonian national, has pleaded guilty to his role in the cybercriminal scheme which made 4 million victims worldwide and caused damages of $14 million (10 million EUR).

Aleksejev is the first of the six individuals arrested by the FBI back in November 2011 to admit his involvement in the operation, Reuters informs.

The man has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He faces up to 25 years in prison for his crimes.

As far as the other suspects are concerned, only one other Estonian has been extradited to the US. The others are in the process of being extradited.

However, a seventh suspect, Andrey Taame of Russia, still hasn’t been apprehended by authorities.

DNS Changer, the piece of malware leveraged by the cybercriminals to make all those millions, has made many headlines. The FBI was forced to instate several DNS servers to give the Trojan’s victims time to clean up their systems before losing their Internet connections.

In July 2012, after numerous advisories and removal tools, the replacement DNS servers were shut down.