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, ....
If convicted of computer hacking charges, the accused could face 10 years in prison, he said.
Although the hackers operated from about a dozen towns all over Quebec, their botnet network was international in scope, infecting 39,000 computers in Poland, 28,000 in Brazil, and 26,000 in Mexico-- the top three countries affected by the group. In all, they hacked into more than 100,000 computers in 100 countries.
