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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Hackers controlling millions of PCs disrupted in Europol sweep

By Anthony Deutsch and Jim Finkle AMSTERDAM/BOSTON (Reuters) – A cybercrime operation that stole banking information by hacking more than 3 million computers in Indonesia, India and other countries has been disrupted by European police with assistance from three technology companies, officials said on Wednesday. Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre coordinated the operation out of its headquarters in The Hague, targeting the so-called Ramnit botnet, a network of computers infected with malware

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BlackBerry closes acquisition of Germany’s Secusmart

TORONTO (Reuters) – BlackBerry Ltd said Friday it has completed its acquisition of Secusmart, a privately held firm that specializes in voice and data encryption. Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry agreed to buy the German maker of encryption and anti-eavesdropping services in July, in a move to burnish its credentials with highly security-conscious clients like government ‎agencies.

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