The Two Dutch Brothers Had Their Prison Sentence Wavered
The two brothers, aged 21 and 25, from Hoogland, Utrecht, were initially sentenced to a year in prison and 240 hours of community service, a month ago. However, due to this being their first offense, the court decided to waver their prison sentences, and punish them solely with community service.
Reportedly, the hackers cooperated fully with the investigation, most likely hoping for a lighter sentence — it seems it paid off. Thanks to their help, authorities were able to identify 1,259 computers infected and retrieved over 14,000 decryption keys.
The brothers allegedly received over $11,000 from around 100 victims. In addition to the community service, the court also sentenced the hacker duo to pay compensation to the affected victims. According to local press, the majority of the victims were from the Netherlands.
At the time of their arrest, Kaspersky had successfully decrypted both CoinVault and Bitcryptor. Apart from the 14,000 decryption keys collected, the security firm was also offering for download a free decryption tool to help users get rid of the ransomware.