Mark Vartanyan, who goes by the online moniker of “Kolypto”, has been sentenced to five years in jail for his part in the development and distribution of the Citadel information-stealing malware.

Vartanyan, a Russian cyber-criminal, was arrested in Denmark and held captive for two years before he was extradited to the U.S. That was taken into consideration when he was sentenced in a US District Court in Atlanta. He was charged with one count of computer fraud.

Vartanyan developed and posted the malware on an invite-only Russian language darknet forum in 2011. U.S. attorney John Horn argued that Vartanyan “developed and improved” the malware toolkit for cyber-criminals around the world.

It's estimated that his malware infected 11 million computers around the world and caused over $500 million in damages.

At its peak in 2012, it surpassed the Zeus banking trojan as the most dangerous banking trojan around.

Vartanyan is not the only person convicted in connection with the Citadel trojan. In October 2015, Dimitry Belorossov was arrested in Spain and subsequently jailed for four and a half years.

Source: Info Security