U.S., European police break up network of 12,000 computers taken over by criminals

Law enforcement agencies in Europe and the United States have dismantled a network comprising at least 12,000 in computers that had been taken over by criminals, Europol said on Thursday. The software used to infect the computers was “very sophisticated” but the network was relatively small compared to others uncovered in the past, Europol said in a statement. Those behind the network or “botnet” infected computers with the software and may then have sold to others the right to install further malicious programs, said Paul Gillen, the head of operations at Europol’s Cybercrime Centre.

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Austrian student’s lawsuit vs Facebook bogged down in procedure

By Shadia Nasralla and Angelika Gruber VIENNA (Reuters) – Facebook presented a long list of procedural objections to an Austrian court on Thursday trying to halt a class action lawsuit for 25,000 users that accuses the social media giant of violating their privacy. The first day of hearings began with a four-hour session in which Facebook's lawyers tried to convince the judge not to admit the suit brought by law student Max Schrems, 27, who is claiming 500 euros ($538) in damages for each user

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