Largest Hacking Scam in Canada Exposed

The Quebec provincial police have busted an International hacking network responsible for the largest hacking scam in Canadian history.

On Wednesday, police raided several homes and arrested 16 people. The hacking network had been targeting unprotected personal computers around the world. The hackers collaborated online to take control of as many as one million computers around the world that were not protected by anti-virus software or firewalls.

The majority of computers attacked were in Poland and Brazil, but some PCs in Canada and the US were also hacked. Several government computers – which government being unspecified – were also affected.

“That way, they were able to introduce some Trojans or worms in those computers, and that way they were able to take control of the computers from abroad,” [police captain Frederick Gaudreau] said at a Montreal news conference on Wednesday.

The computers were used to set up fake websites that solicited users to provide personal information, as a means for identity theft and fraud. No information about what the data was used for has been provided. However, the hacking network is estimated to have made as much as $45 million from their efforts.

Via CBC Tags: hacking, hack, hacking network, hackers, hacking ring, fraud, computer fraud, spam, trojan, worms, canada, quebec