Money Matters, Simplified.
China shutters hacker training Web site
by Jaspreet Virk - February 8, 2010 - comments
The arrests have come less than a month after Google threatened to pull out of China after Chinese based hackers carried out cyber attacks, resulting in theft of its intellectual property rights.
New York, February 8 -- Cracking down some of the serious offenders and hackers, the Chinese authorities have shuttered Black Hawk Safety Net, the largest training Web site for hackers.
According to media reports, the officials have also arrested three organizers of the Web site.
Headquartered in Central China's Hubei province, Black Hawk Safety Net operate through the site www.3800cc.com.
The Internet site has been accused of training thousands of people on how to launch cyber attacks and supplied malicious software to hack sites.
A 23-year-old person told the China Daily that he had downloaded Trojan software from the site and it allowed him to launch attacks.
"I did this just for fun, but I also know that many other members could make a fortune by attacking other people's accounts.”
The China Daily also reported that since its inception in 2005, Black Hawk Safety Net has added more than 12000 VIP members and has collected more than 7 million yuan in membership fees.
Further, around 170,000 people have been registered with the site for free.
Cyber terrorism in China
Black Hawk Safety Net is just of the various Web sites that have been accused of training people.
A 20-year-old student was quoted by the paper as saying that he had previously registered with three training site, which offered hacking courses costing between 100 to 2,000 yuan.
The student added that the hackers are mostly teenagers who are school drop outs and they make money by hacking accounts.
According to a spokesperson of ministry of industry and information technology, around 42,000 Web sites were attacked in 2009.
China trying to improve image
The arrests have come less than a month after Google threatened to pull out of China after Chinese based hackers carried out cyber attacks, resulting in theft of its intellectual property rights.
The hackers targeted the e-mails accounts of its users who were dealing with human rights issues in China.
Though the country denied involvement in the attacks against the company, Google claimed that the attacks had originated from servers in China.
With the latest crackdown that spanned three Chinese provinces, the country is only trying to improve its image and attempting to discredit allegations levied against it by Google.