Police in Quebec, Canada, have arrested 17 young hacker suspects, breaking a criminal ring that was controlling almost one million computers in 100 countries.

The suspects’ computers have been seized, and are being examined for evidence. The hackers, each with several computers, apparently operated from different locations across the province. They used Trojan Horse and worm software to probe for poorly protected computers. These machines were then attacked and turned into , or part of a . Each hacker controlled about 5,000 computers, according to police.

A is a malicious program that appears to perform a certain action, often benign or even desired. But behind the scenes, it also performs a completely different action. A is a self-duplicating program that can, for example, send copies of itself to everyone in your address list, usually without your knowledge or, of course, consent.

The only indication you may have of these attacks is that your Internet connection and/or your PC are running slowly. The police pointedly asked all users to keep their antivirus and firewall software up to date. Victims of this latest attack neglected one or both, with predictible results.

The investigation began in 2006, and will likely last for some time, as authorities prepare the charges against the accused, and send them to trial. Please take the time to keep all your security programs up to date, including Windows. Believe me, you will save a lot of grief and frustration.

Syd Tash is a noted computer security consultant and author of How to Protect Your Computer Online. He has been keeping Internet surfers safe and secure since the last century. Find out how he does it; protect your own computer with five layers of protection right here:
= > http://MyPCSecuritySite.com

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