Dmitri Jegorov, 36, is an Estonian national who pled guilty on Monday to participating in an Internet fraud ring that brought in more than $14 million. The fraud took place between 2007 and 2011 using malware to infect more than four million computers around the world, including over 500,000 in the US. The malware was even said to infect NASA computers and computers in other government agencies.
The malware, which impacted the DNS settings on infected computers among other things, would replace the ads on popular sites such as Amazon, ESPN, WSJ and others with their own ads. When users would click on the ads, those in the fraud ring would receive payments.
In the plea deal, Jergov limited his sentence to 5 to 6.5 years in prison, which is down from the up to 25 years he would have faced if he did not plead guilty. The exact sentence has yet to be handed out. In addition to the prison time, he has agreed to forfeit $1 million and other assets to the government.
Jergov and six others were indicted on this case after a two-year probe by the FBI resulted in their arrest. The FBI’s operation was called “Operation Ghost Click.” There is still one man that the FBI is attempting to track down related to this case, Russian national Andrey Taame.
When making the plea, Jergov told the Magistrate, “I knew what I was doing was wrong and illegal.”
