Police in Spain have arrested four people in connection
with a series of online crimes including malware writing, data
theft and credit card fraud.
Two seventeen year-olds were arrested yesterday in Alicante,
charged with creating a Trojan horse which allowed them to remotely
take control of webcams within local educational institutions.
This enabled the duo to spy on students and record compromising
images, which they then used to blackmail the victims into giving
them money.
Later in the same day, two adults were arrested in Madrid, in
connection with the original inquiry.
It is alleged that the adults used the teenage malware authors
to obtain confidential data in order to commit credit card
fraud.
Using fake credit card details, the two adults allegedly made
purchases amounting to more than 60,000 euros (£41,600).
Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at internet
security software firm Sophos, said, "The two individuals charged
with creating the Trojan may be minors, but this is no schoolboy
prank.
“These criminals were in it for the money, and were prepared to
blackmail and steal from their peers, as well as selling on
personal information so that other wrongdoers could get in on the
act,” she said.
In February 2005, a Spanish male computer student was fined for
spying on a young woman via her webcam, as well as monitoring her
online conversations and e-mail communications.
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