Yesterday, law enforcement in the United States and 19 other countries announced they had arrested 90 people who used Blackshades, an extremely dangerous piece of malware, to snoop on unsuspecting computer users around the world.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in New York told reporters the global investigation "exposed and crippled a frightening form of cybercrime that has affected hundreds of thousands of users around the world."
The sweep, capping a two-year operation, was coordinated so suspects didn't have time to destroy evidence. It included the arrest of a Swedish hacker who was a co-creator of Blackshades, Alex Yucel, who was apprehended in Moldova.
Blackshades sells for as little as $40, and is horribly invasive. Among its uses are spying on you via your webcam, snooping on people's hard drives and real-time keystroke logging--without the user even knowing it. It's so invasive that if you have it on your computer, you might as well have the hacker sitting next to you when you're online. The FBI coordinated with several other agencies around the world because cybercrime has become a cottage industry, with some of the bottom-feeders having paid employees to help "improve" their product. Apparently it's worked--over 700,000 people around the world have been infected.
One of the highest-profile victims of this piece of scumware is the reigning Miss Teen USA, Cassidy Wolf. In March, she got a frightening email from a hacker that had used Blackshades to take nude pictures of her with her webcam. The email threatened to release the pictures to the public unless, among other things, Wolf gave the sender a five-minute sex show on Skype. This continued for three months until the bottom-feeder was finally tracked down. He turned out to be Jared Abrahams, a former high school classmate of hers. He pleaded guilty in November, and last month was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. Wolf told her story to Anderson Cooper last night--watch it here.
The crackdown has the hacking world literally running scared. Hacking forums lit up last week with warnings about police visits to their homes. That's a good thing--anyone who deliberately infects other users with this garbage ought to be scared.