Canada's Largest Hacker Bust Ever Rounds Up 17 Perps
Guess what, Canada has hackers too! It's true, the country isn't all maple leaves and mounties. Now the only question is whether Canada has anymore hackers after Wednesday's raid that snatched up 17 of these young whippersnappers in 12 towns across the winter-swept country.
The suspects ranged from 17 to 26 years-old, and with one exception, all male. The 17 tech-savvy young men and woman formed a hacking ring accused of trafficking in identity and data theft, denial of service attacks (cutting off Internet access), and spamming. The criminal hackers used the standard tools of the trade -- viruses, spyware, and bots to hijack victims' PCs and servers.
The attacks are estimated to have caused $45 million in damages to governments, businesses and individuals around the world. Each hacker is thought to be responsible for hijacking 5,000 computers, most outside of Canada.
From National Post
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dcurrie @ Feb 22nd 2008 4:32PM
"winter-swept country"? why do you yanks constantly say that stuff? Have you seen the weather in YOUR eastern seaboard?
Sea Worthy @ Feb 24th 2008 4:33AM
Hackers sound like a bunch of bratty nerdy kids, with pimples and weird haircuts, just having fun on the Computer Yeah! No harm no foul, Right! Yeah! At one time everybody looked upon what they were doing as just harmless what collar crime. What the heck, create a few weird viruses like Trojan Horse (only a teenage kid could think of something this silly) or brake into government computers and reek havoc (Denial of Service) on their operations, causing them many man-hours in getting them back in service. Let try some financial institutions or corporate businesses and steal their files containing personal data, which sound like fun. Now they have graduated from the arcade video games (Doom Riders) to the big league. And of course they keep the big boys on their toes beefing up their computer security –don’t they? But now it has become real serious, identity thief and stolen credit cards etc. It’s time for them to obey the Laws or do the time.
jerry @ Feb 24th 2008 5:14PM
I hope these people go to jail, pay restitution and are banned from using computers.
Instead they will go to work for the geverment.
jerry @ Feb 24th 2008 5:17PM
sorry, typing too fast.should be Goverment