Vincent Arnold

Quebec police break up a hacking ring that police say is responsible for an estimated $44.3 million) in damage to computer systems.

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
Thursday, February 21, 2008 5:00 PM PST

Quebec provincial police conducted raids on Wednesday, breaking up a hacking ring that police say is responsible for an estimated CDN$45 million (US$44.3 million) in damage to computer systems.

The hackers installed remote-controlled “botnet” software on victims’ computers in order to run phishing and spamming operations, said Capt. Frederick Gaudreau, of the Surete du Quebec, in a videotaped press conference posted to the police agency’s Web site. “The hackers managed to install botnets on the victims’ computers, which permitted them to control at a distance the victims’ computers,” he said. “These said computers were then used to attack Web sites in order to steal victims’ data.”

Source: PCWorld

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 7:30 am and is filed under Information Security.