Authorities arrested about 100 people as part of a global crackdown on malicious software used to infect half a million computers, U.S. and European authorities said on Monday, the Associated Press reported.
The software, created by an organization called "BlackShades," allows hackers to control other people's computers remotely, recording keystrokes, stealing passwords and gaining access to their personal files, the AP reported.
In some cases, users employed the inexpensive software, known as BlackShades' Remote Access Tool or RAT, to take over the computers' cameras and spy on their owners, officials said at a press conference in New York, according to the AP.
"For just $40, BlackShades' RAT enabled anyone, anywhere in the world, to become a dangerous cyber criminal," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told reporters, the AP reported.
In a series of raids over two days, police searched 359 homes in 16 countries in Europe and the Americas, according to Eurojust, the EU's judicial cooperation agency. Beside computer hardware, police in Europe seized cash, illegal firearms and drugs, according to the AP.
A spokeswoman for the FBI said 19 different countries were involved in the investigation, the AP reported.
Swedish man Alex Yucel, 24, owned and operated BlackShades using the alias "marjinz," according to U.S. authorities, who unsealed charges against him and four others on Monday, according to the AP. He was arrested in November in Moldova and is awaiting extradition. It was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer.
BlackShades generated more than $350,000 in sales between September 2010 and April 2014, the documents said, but it was not clear how much money users of the software may have stolen from their alleged victims, the AP reported. The prosecutor's office said another BlackShades employee, Brendan Johnston, 23, was arrested in California on Monday.
