Blackshades RAT Mastermind Sentenced to Five Years in Prison
The Swedish co-creator of the Blackshades RAT has been sentenced to 57 months in prison by US authorities. Another success for law enforcement against cybercrime.
A federal court in New York has sentenced Alex Yücel (aka “marjinz”), a Swede, to nearly five years in prison in a U.S. prison on Tuesday for allegedly masterminding the BlackShades Remote Access Tool (RAT). BlackShades is a popular RAT in the underworld that has infected more than 500,000 computers worldwide. Yücel was sentenced to nearly five years in prison in a U.S. prison on Tuesday.
BlackShades allows the user to gain complete control of the victim's machine, and was designed to spy on victims by stealing their credentials and sensitive data, by monitoring their keystrokes, by sending instant messages, and in many other ways.
Alex Yücel, 25, was the administratorof “BlackShades” and offered the notorious RAT to thousands of criminals and clients in more than 100 countries. Yücel is the co-creator of the BlackShades RAT, and the second developer is American Michael Hogue, who is facing the same charges. Hogue is expected to be sentenced on July 24.
The RAT was prominently advertised on various hacking forums and "sold as a product that ideally combined the features of various types of hacking tools."
BlackShades was very cheap, one could get it for around $40 to $50. In 2012, Citizen Lab and EFF reported that the notorious Blackshades was used in targeted attacks in Syria.
