DNS - Cyber Criminals Halted in China

With the Internet and censorship controls in place in China, is it possible that this industry player is the center for Internet crime? According to an Associated Press (News - Alert) report, a hacker training operation that was openly recruiting thousands of members online has been shut down by police.

This “business” in central China recruited members and then provided them with cyber attack lessons and malicious software. This crackdown may just be what the industry needs as Google (News - Alert) announced last month that its e-mail accounts hacked from China. This assault was found to hit an additional 20 companies.

Three people were arrest by police in Hubei on suspicion of running the hacker site known as the Black Hawk Safety Net. This farce of a safety net actually disseminated website hacking techniques and Trojan software, according to the China Daily newspaper. This take down followed an investigation that involved 50 police officers in three provinces.

In its attempts to profit through criminal activity, Black Hawk Safety Net had already recruited more than 12,000 paying subscribers and collected over $1 million in membership fees. Another 170,000 people had signed up for the site’s free membership. Police records reported the seizure of nine servers, five computers and a car. Officials also shut down all websites involved in the case and froze 1.7 million yuan, or $250,000 in assets.

Not to be thwarted completely in their attempts at a profitable business, a notice to Black Hawk’s website members read, “At this time, there are Internet users with evil intentions who have deliberately destroyed Black Hawk’s reputation, deceived our members and stole material. We must join forces and attack these Web sites.”

While 3800hk.com, the Black Hawk site, could not be accessed by the press, a notice is said to be circulating among online forums, claiming a backup site had been set up. The notice also reassured members of the company’s continued operations and the unfair treatment of its name and its founders.

There is now speculation throughout the industry that the Chinese could be directly involved with this hacking activity or at least endorsing it. Government officials have defended China’s online censorship and denied involvement in Internet attacks, claiming the country is the biggest victim of online attacks.

“The scale, operation and logistics of conducting these attacks – against the government, commercial and private sectors – indicates that they’re state-sponsored,” security firm Mandiant Corp. said in a report last month. “The Chinese government may authorize this activity, but there’s no way to determine the extent of its involvement.”

This isn’t the first time hacking sites have been found in China and it isn’t likely to be the last. The country is certainly not alone as providing a home to cyber criminals, but the government’s approach to the activity will definitely determine just how much the situation differs. Chemical Abstracts Service said it began seeing a sharp increase in attempted attacks of customer accounts from China about a year ago well before Google’s problems started.

 

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