Teenagers arrested in cybercrime crackdown

Two teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of being part of a cybercrime ring that handled stolen credentials from thousands of credit cards.

The suspects, who are 17 and 18 years old, were arrested on Wednesday by appointment at a central London police station, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. They are still being held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit fraud and of contravening the Computer Misuse Act.

The two are thought to have participated in what the Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) believes is the largest international English-speaking online crime forum. The web forum has almost 8,000 members, who participate in the buying and selling of credit card and personal information, malware and crime tutorials. Personal data for sale included bank account numbers, PINs and passwords, according to the Met.

The police investigation into the forum has recovered more than 65,000 compromised credit card numbers, which can be sold for between 10 cents (6p) and $25 online, according to Symantec. The average potential loss per card is estimated to be £120, adding up to a total loss of £7.8m loss for all the cards.

Malware kits traded on the forum included the password-stealing Zeus Trojan, and compromised data from computers infected with the Zeus bot. The forum has an administrator who allegedly created and controls the site, including membership status.