14 DAY TRIAL // Europol has announced the arrest of 12 suspects in Operation Fallen sTAR, a campaign that seeks to denounce European citizens who misuse Remote Access Trojans (RATs) to commit cyber-crime.
Together with local law enforcement agencies, Europol says it conducted home searches, seized equipment and arrested 12 people in France, Norway and Romania.
This wave of arrests was coordinated by the Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3).
"Operation Falling sTAR is another striking example of how coordinated international efforts and effective law enforcement partnerships can counter and prevent cyber criminality," said Wil van Gemert, Europol’s Deputy Director Operations.
"The very technologies that empower people in everyday situations can be exploited to target and harm unsuspecting victims. As crimes committed online remain an urgent and increasing challenge, law enforcement agencies have to join forces across borders and act in unison to protect the users and prevent young individuals from pursuing a criminal path," he also added.
No details have been provided about what type of RATs the suspects were caught using.
Previous arrests were also made in October, for this same reason
Earlier in October, Europol made similar arrests, apprehending RAT users from the UK, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Belgium. In those cases, the suspects used the DroidJack RAT, which targets Android devices.
Operation Fallen sTAR is part of Europol's recent crusade against the usage of Remote Access Trojans, either for cyber-crime or for spying on acquaintances or spouses.
A Remote Access Trojan (also called Remote Access Tool) allows hackers to infect computers or smartphones and then spy on their victims.
They can take screenshots, spy via the webcam, listen in on conversations via the microphone, steal data from the device, install malicious applications, intercept IM chats or SMS messages.
More powerful RATs allow attackers to use infected devices as bots inside DDoS attacks. Technically, even if most RATs are developed by security researchers for penetration tests, most antivirus engines categorize them as malware.