The Latest in IT Security

Police in 16 countries across the United States, western Europe and in Chile have seized cash, firearms and drugs and arrested 80 people suspected of peddling virus software believed to have infected hundreds of thousands of computers, according to European legal authorities. Two days of raids targeted creators, users and sellers of the “BlackShades” malware, which the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says has been sold to thousands of users in more than 100 countries, infecting more than 500,000 computers. The raids involved searches of 359 homes in 16 countries, said Eurojust, the EU’s judicial cooperation agency. Five defendants charged in the United States include Alex Yucel, who owned and operated the BlackShades organization under the online name “marjinz,” according to court documents unsealed in New York on Monday.