MOSCOW, June 31 (RAPSI) - Pavel Vrublevsky, the co-founder and owner of ChronoPay, one of Russia's largest e-payment providers, was found guilty of masterminding a DDoS attack on Aeroflot's website in 2010, RAPSI reports from the courtroom on Wednesday.

Vrublevsky, Maxim Permyakov and Igor and Dmitry Artimovich were charged with organizing a DDoS attack on Aeroflot's website, which is run by the Assist processing company. Aeroflot's online ticket sales system was down for several days.

The investigators believe that Vrublevsky tried to terminate a service contract to sell e-tickets between Aeroflot and Assist in July 2010, thus eliminating a rival firm.

According to the Prosecutor General's Office, Vrublevsky instructed Permyakov, the Chief Security Expert at ChronoPay, to hire the Artimovich brothers to hack into Aeroflot's website. The brothers, who used a network of virus-infected computers, were paid over $20,000.

They attacked the website from July 15 to 24, blocking the e-ticket payment system.

The firms incurred substantial financial losses. Assist lost 15 million rubles ($488,090) and Aeroflot lost more than 146 million rubles ($4.75 million).

Acting upon an appeal filed by the defense lawyers earlier, the court dropped the charges under Article 273 of the Criminal Code, which stipulates a punishment for creating a harmful program, due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

The case is being heard under Article 272 on illegal access to computer information protected by law, which resulted in its destruction, blocking, modification or copying.
Aeroflot is a member of the SkyTeam global alliance and is based at the Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. In 2011, Aeroflot transported over 14 million passengers. The Federal Agency for State Property Management is Aeroflot's main shareholder with a 51.17% stake. Around 15% of the airline is held by companies belonging to businessman Alexander Lebedev.