Fifteen people have been arrested across seven countries and searched in a European-wide crackdown on malware that silently steals people’s data and snoops after them over webcams.

For example, two men aged 33, one aged 20, and a woman aged 30 were arrested in different parts of the United Kingdom. In addition, a search warrant was executed on a 19-year-old Briton who was brought in for questioning. Another 11 suspects were arrested across Europe: Italy, Estonia, Latvia, France, Romania, and Norway, as part of the operation led by Europol.

All fifteen individuals are suspected of using remote access trojans (RATs) to spy on people’s digital lives. Remote access trojans are often used for stealing logins to web accounts or to obtain access to cameras. The latter could be either for their own viewing or to sell to others.

Surprisingly enough, the list lacks any suspects from Russia, although just a few hours ago, the UK privacy regulator has been claiming that some Russian website offered feeds of people’s webcams. Apparently, Europeans were more interested in their neighbors’ lives.

The UK national cybercrime unit pointed out that the illegal use of remote access Trojans is considered as a significant cybercrime threat, which demands a strong, coordinated response from international to local British level. The same agency claimed that the results of the raid could prove that the users of RATs now saw that, despite having no physical contact or interaction with their victims, they can still be identified, found and arrested by the law enforcement authorities.

They also add that Europol’s European cybercrime center helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation in leading another major anti-RAT operation earlier in 2014. At the time, Europol announced arrests in an investigation into the Blackshades RAT, which infected half a million of computers. Over 100 arrests were made all over the world. Now the alliance of EU law enforcement agencies joined forces in order to “send a strong signal to the criminals using RAT malware”. They also engaged with the predominantly younger individuals involved in order to “discourage them from pursuing this criminal path”. Indeed, young offenders tend to perceive online crimes “less serious”, because they have no physical contact with the victim or the effects of their crimes.

Internet not safe place:/