Cyber criminals in UK and Spain arrested after Europol investigation

Five arrested for designing and selling malicious software tools in exchange for bitcoins

Five people alleged to have been part of a cyber-crime ring that designed and sold malicious software tools have been arrested in two countries across the European Union.

Two of those arrested came from the UK, and three were from Spain. They are suspected of designing and selling malicious software tools that could enable users to monitor and control the computers of their victims.

The tools were equipped with keylogger Trojans, which can record and communicate keystrokes, enabling the attackers to retrieve victims' financial details. These would include credit card numbers and bank passwords of victims, who wouldn't have been able to notice that their PC had been hacked.

The malicious software was sold on hacking forums in exchange for the bitcoin, which has become the default currency for many cyber criminals in recent years. Fees were performance-related and supposedly based on the number of infections actually achieved.

The European law enforcement agency Europol co-ordinated the investigation, which involved the co-operation of the Technological Research Unit of the Spanish national police, the UK National Cybercrime Unit TITAN, and security software company Trend Micro.

"National Police agents have dismantled an international group of cyber criminals specialising in the design, development and marketing of sophisticated tools to provide invisibility (encryption) to all kinds of malware to infect thousands of computers worldwide," according to the police statement.

Investigators believe that the cybercriminal ring had been running since 2013 and had generated a substantial financial return.

Arrests were made in Barcelona, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Liverpool. During the investigation, police seized six hard drives, a laptop, an external hard drive, two external storage devices, eight Bitcoin mining devices and bank account details.