US News

Over 90 arrested in cyber breach that ensnared Miss Teen USA

​More than a half million computers worldwide – including one belonging to​ Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf – were hacked by malicious software that let cyber​-​crimin​als quietly gain access ​to thousands of victims’ webcams and steal their files and account information​​.

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara ​on Monday ​announced a joint law-enforcement effort to shut down an international group called Blackshades, which sold the so-called “malware” to thousands of people that was used on victims in more than 100 countries.

Bharara called BlackShades a “frightening form of cyber crime” that allowed “its users to intrude other victim’s privacy in a most sinister way.”

Among the victims was Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf, the California beauty who last year confirmed she received an anonymous email by a sender claiming to have nude photos of her taken off the web cam of her laptop.

The e-mail threatened to upload the photos to the world so that her “dream of being a model” would be “transformed” into her “being a porn star.” To avoid such embarrassment, she was told to immediately provide better quality photos and video, include a five-minute sex show on Skype, CNN reported.

The suspect in that case, Jared James Abrahams, pleaded guilty in state court in Orange County, Calif, to extorting and hacking Wolf and other young women. He was sentenced in March to 18 months behind bars.

When asked if Wolf’s incident played a role in the probe, Bharara said, “As is often true in other kinds of prosecutions and investigations, one successful investigation or prosecution leads to others.”

As part of one of the largest global cyber-crime crackdowns in history, prosecutors also revealed the Swedish hacker who created Blackshades was among more 90 people arrested in the sweeping two-year probe.

Mastermind Alex Yucel, another co-creator of Blackshades, and three other co-conspirators who used the product to commit hacking crimes were charged in federal criminal indictments unsealed Monday in Manhattan.

Blackshade’s flagship product was a remote access tool – or RAT – that for $40 gave buyers the ability to easily prey on cybervictims by turning on their webcams, stealing passwords and accessing hard drives to pull off crimes including extortion and bank fraud.

“As today’s case makes clear, we now live in a world, where, for just $40, a cyber criminal halfway across the globe can – with a click of a mouse – unleash a RAT that can spread a computer plague not only on someone’s property, but also on their privacy and most personal spaces,” Bharara said.

Authorities said the BlackShades “RAT” has been sold since 2010 to several thousand users, generating more than $350,000 in sales. The agency said one of the program’s co-creators is a cooperating witness.

Yucel, arrested in Moldova last November and is facing extradition to the United States. Michael Hogue, 23, of Maricopa, Arizona — the program’s co-creator —pleaded guilty in Manhattan after his June 2012 arrest and is cooperating.

Law enforcement coordination agencies Europol and Eurojust, based in The Hague, Netherlands, told Associated Press that police in 13 European countries — Austria, Belgium, Britain, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands and Switzerland — as well as in the United States, Canada and Chile raided 359 properties and seized cash, firearms, drugs and more than 1,000 data storage devices.

BlackShades can also be used to encrypt and lock computer data files, forcing people to pay a ransom to regain access.

It’s low cost has boosted its popularity across the hacker underground. Last year, security firm Symantec said use of BlackShades was rising, with program licenses costing $40 to $100.