Russian authorities have convicted a university student who ran web sites that distributed computer viruses.

Sergey Kazachkov, a Russian university science student from the town of Voronezh, was found guilty of running two sites that distributed more than 4,000 computer virus varieties.

The student has been given a two-year suspended sentence and faces a one year probation period.

The sites are two of many used by hackers on the internet to download malware, which can be used to launch distributed denial of service attacks, post phishing emails and send information stealing trojans.

Kazachkov's conviction builds on a crackdown by Russian authorities to take down virus distribution sites. In November 2004, a man from the international 29A virus writing gang was convicted for posting malware on websites, says IT security firm Sophos.

But Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos said the sentence was little more than a slap on the wrist.

'Kazachkov was playing a dangerous game by running a website which helped spread viruses designed to cause harm to the data of innocent computer users,' he said.

'Cyber crime is getting more and more serious and causes horrendous problems for businesses, so a stronger message must go out to those behind these crimes that it won't be tolerated.'

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