The Microsoft Corporationis making progress in efforts to stopone of the most harmfulcybercrime operations active today.It is called Zeus.Last week, an American judge orderedthe group of cybercriminalsto end their illegal activities.A week earlier, federal officials raided office buildingsin two states and seized evidence relatedto the Zeus family of computer software.Richard Boscovich is with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit.RICHARD BOSCOVICH: "The objective was to go in thereand be able to seize evidence which would lead usto hopefully identify the individualsbehind the Zeus family of malware as well asultimately identify the computers of peopleall over the world that are compromised.That is, that they have the malware on their computer.Their being victimized, being used to victimized othersand they don't even know about it."Cybercriminals use Zeus to create a networkof infected computers, or botnet,to steal personal information from computer users.Mr. Boscovich says the operation reaches around the world.RICHARD BOSCOVICH: "We've identified this particular malwarewas present at any particular point in timein at least thirteen million computers worldwide."Malware means malicious software.It also can be called a computer virus or worm.Mister Boscovich says it is mostly spreadthrough a normal everyday activity.RICHARD BOSCOVICH: "The malware is spread through emailswhere people inadvertently are trickedto click on a particular link on the emailor visit a particular site.And once that happens, the objective is to infectthe person's computer with this piece of malware."The malware is programmed to record every keyyou strike on a computer keyboard.It gathers details about the websites you visit,your usernames and passwords, or other personal information.The information is then sent to the botnet's command center.RICHARD BOSCOVICH: "What that is is a location on the Internet.It could be domain based or IP based,where the criminals will direct all of these computersthat they've infected to every once in a while literallycall out to these domains or these IPs asking for directions."Much of the stolen information is sold on the black market.The information can be used to steal moneyfrom bank accounts or make purchases onlinewithout the victim's knowledge.Officials say these malware invasionsare one of the main causes of identity theft.Microsoft brought a case against the Zeus operationon March nineteenth.The company released the details of the caseafter the buildings were raided on March twenty-third.Next week, we will tell more about the raids, Zeus,and what Microsoft says computer users can do to protect themselves.We will also talk about other recent efforts to fight cybercrime.And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report,written by June Simms.Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our reportsare at 51voa.com.