29A member convicted in Russia

In Russia a virus writer known as Whale has been pronounced guilty. His real name is Evgenii Suchkov, and we know that he belonged to 29A, the notorious virus writing group. We think he may also be a member of HangUp Team, a similar Russian group.

Suchkov’s trial was on 22nd October this year in Izhevsk, Russia. He admitted that he was guilty of writing two complex viruses: Stepar and Gastropod. He created these viruses and put the source code and exe files on some virus writing sites, including 29A website.

He was only fined 3,000 roubles or $100 and now has a criminal record. This isn’t much – but the court didn’t have any evidence to prove that the viruses had caused any material loss. But now Russian virus writers know that they are not always going to be able to hide from the law. And the world knows that Russia is doing something about virus writing.