One of the developers of the Blackshades spyware tool pleaded guilty to distributing malware on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court.
A Swedish national, Alex Yucel (24), was accused of participating in the development of the Blackshades RAT (remote access Trojan) and its sale to thousands of people between 2010 and 2013, through an organized network.
The other developer of the malicious application is Michael Hogg, who pleaded guilty in January 2013 and is currently awaiting sentencing, according to information from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.
Also awaiting sentencing are Brendan Johnston (an administrator for the Blackshades organization) and Marlen Rappa and Kyle Fedorek, Blackshades clients. All of the aforementioned pleaded guilty.
The RAT was sold on cybercriminal forums and allowed an attacker to gain access to computer data, as well as collect data entered from the keyboard and activate the camera, if one was available, in order to spy on the victim.
Also included in the list of features is the ability to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS).
The two developers priced the tool between $40/€35 and $100/€88 and are believed to have made $350,000/€307,000 from sales.
According to researchers, Blackshades infected over 500,000 computers in over 100 countries. In 2014, the FBI conducted a global operation to shut down the Blackshades organization, which resulted in the arrest of approximately 100 individuals.
Yucel was arrested in Moldova in 2013 and is the first person to be extradited from that country to the United States.
He faces a maximum sentence in prison and is scheduled to appear in court on May 22, and has the right to appeal.
According to the original indictment in 2013, Yucel was charged with a total of five counts of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, distribution of malicious software, conspiracy to commit device access fraud, device access fraud and aggravated identity theft.
