Petr Levashov was born on August 13, 1980 in Leningrad, received a mathematical education at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in the Department of Technical Cybernetics. In the cybercriminal community, Levashov is better known under the nickname Severa.
Severa became famous thanks to the Storm Worm, Waledac and Kelihos botnets, created in 2007, 2008 and 2010. It is not known whether Levashov was the developer of these systems, but he controlled them and used them for mass email distribution, DDoS attacks, and distribution of malware such as ransomware.