A Florida software distributor has been sentenced to federal prison after being convicted of Microsoft certificate of authenticity trafficking, a scheme that involved selling genuine software authentication labels separately from the software they were meant to accompany.

Heidi Richards, 52, of Brandon, was sentenced to 22 months in prison and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine after a jury found her guilty of conspiring to traffic in illicit Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity (COA) labels. The sentencing was announced by U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe.

The case sheds light on a lesser-known corner of software-related cybercrime where legitimate authentication components are diverted int...