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Armenia handed down its first computer crime sentence on Tuesday with punishment of the mastermind behind the Bredolab botnet.

A district court sentenced 27-year-old Georgy Avanesov, a Russian citizen of Armenian descent, to four years in prison on charges of creating and spreading the Bredolab virus that infected an estimated 30 million computers around the world. The malware siphoned bank account passwords and other confidential information from infected computers.

Although Armenia is not a leading haven for cybercriminals, the arrest and conviction of Avanesov there can be viewed as part of an encouraging trend to law enforcement agencies in the west, since it shows a willingness in some East European countries to begin clamping down on cyber criminals in a region that has long turned a blind eye to such activity.