Three people allegedly involved for years in cybercriminal activities in Eastern Europe have been charged in a U.S. court for creating and distributing the Gozi virus that infected more than 1 million computers and allowed cybercriminals to steal millions of dollars over a five-year period.

The three defendants, Nikita Kuzmin of Russia, Mihai Ionut Paunescu of Romania, and Deniss Calovskis of Latvia, face a variety of charges in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday. Gozi targeted online banking credentials and other online accounts and infected 40,000 computers in the U.S., including 160 at NASA, the U.S. space agency.

Kuzmin, the alleged chief architect and promoter of Gozi, faces charges of bank fraud and conspiracy, access device fraud and conspiracy, and computer intrusion, among other charges. Kuzmin allegedly began working on Gozi in 2005, and computer security experts discovered the threat in 2007, according to court documents.

Paunescu, who allegedly provided secure hosting to the creators of Gozi, the Zeus Trojan and the SpyEye Trojan, faces charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

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