Hacker Training Website Shutdown
>> Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Three suspects behind the site, which provided prospective hackers with instructions on how to launch cyber-attacks and use malicious software, were arrested following the raid on the offices of "Black Hawk Safety Net" in Hubei province.
Police said they had seized more than 1.7 million yuan (£160,000) in assets and confiscated nine web servers, five computers .
and a car during the operation last November which was launched after a cyber attack was traced to Black Hawk-trained hackers.
The news of the move against the hacking site has emerged as China remains locked in talks with Google, the US internet search giant, over allegations that China-based hackers attempted to infiltrate the email accounts of US businesses and Chinese human rights activists abroad.
The Beijing government has vigorously denied any suggestion that it was linked to the attacks – either directly or through proxies – although the Obama administration has demanded "an explanation" for the "highly sophisticated" attacks having reviewed technical data supplied by Google.
The ministry of industry and information technology said hackers tampered with more than 42,000 websites last year, including high-profile attacks on China's leading search engine Baidu.com by a group calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army".
Black Hawk, which was offline on Monday, was established in 2005 and had amassed over 12,000 fee-paying members and a 170,000 free-registered users who paid from £10 to £100
for basic hacking instructions and "Trojan" software, reported the China Daily newspaper.
for basic hacking instructions and "Trojan" software, reported the China Daily newspaper.
