According to reports from China Daily, what is believed to be the largest illegal hacker training and recruitment entity in China has been shut down by police.
Three people were arrested and the equivalent of a quarter of a million dollars in assets frozen. The accused, who ran a now-shuttered site called Black Hawk Safety Net, are suspected of offering online attacking programs, disseminating viruses and recruiting almost 200,000 members. Police have confiscated nine servers and five computers and completely closed all associated websites.
Over the past 5 years, the site owners had collected more than the equivalent of $1 million in membership fees. Reportedly, paying members were able to download trojans and were coached on writing programs designed to steal accounts for profit.
According to China Daily’s police sources, Black Hawk Safety Net was the subject of research and scrutiny from a team of around 50 police officers ever since 2007, when suspected hackers in another attack were found to be members of the site.
There is no word yet as to whether this site or its members or owners were affiliated with the recent attacks on Google accounts and other international entities. To read more related news, check out our ever-growing archives on China’s Internet exploits.
