Gozi co-author who plead guilty spared more prison time

The Latvian man who admitted to co-authoring a banking malware that infected more than 1 million computers and causing millions of dollars in losses was spared further prison time in a Manhattan Federal court on Tuesday.

Deniss Calovskis was sentenced to his time already served, 21 months, after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit computer intrusion authoring and distributing the Gozi virus in September 2015.

U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood said that just last month she had considered instituting a longer sentence, but the prosecutors recommended a two-year sentence because Calovskis didn't create the code nor disseminate the virus. His involvement was limited to writing a portion of the code as a freelance programmer, said The Hill.

Wood acknowledged the severity of the crime, but said Calovskis has been adequately punished.