Blackshades malware co-creator gets five years of probation

Worsening tensions: The attack on public and financial websites could be coming from Russia.

NEW YORK: An Arizona man who co-created software distributed by an organisation called Blackshades that was used to hack into a million computers worldwide was sentenced on Jan 29 to five years of probation.

Michael Hogue, who online was known by the moniker "xVisceral", was sentenced by US District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan after pleading guilty in 2013 to distributing malware and conspiring to commit computer hacking.