Police have arrested three British men suspected of being part of an international gang of cyber criminals.

The Metropolitan Police's Computer Crime Unit worked on a joint operation with the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation and the Finnish Pori Police Department, to arrest three suspected members of the virus writing gang 'Moop'.

The men – a 63-year-old from Suffolk, a 28-year-old and a 19-year-old both from Scotland, have been detained in connection with a conspiracy to infect computers with malware

The group are believed to have written the malware to create a zombie network of compromised computers.

'Zombie computers can be used by criminal hackers to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks, spread spam messages or to steal confidential information and commit identity theft,' said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos.

'It's great to see one less virus writing gang, but the sad fact is that this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. A strong message needs to be sent out that those who engage in malicious computer attacks will receive severe punishment,' he said.

The virus writing gang is believed to have chosen their name after an episode of the South Park cartoon series where the characters form a band called 'Moop'. The episode involved thinly-veiled references to file sharing and the music industry.

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