Chinese, Denying Government Involvement, Close a Hacker Nest

Police in central China have shut down a hacker training operation that openly recruited thousands of members online and provided them with cyberattack lessons and malicious software, state media said Monday (February 8). The crackdown comes amid growing concern that China is a center for a global explosion of Internet crimes. Search giant Google said last month its email accounts were hacked from China in an assault that also hit at least 20 other companies. Police in Hubei province arrested three people suspected of running the hacker site known as the Black Hawk Safety Net that disseminated Web site hacking techniques and Trojan software, the China Daily newspaper said. Trojans, which can allow outside access to a computer when implanted, are used by hackers to illegally control computers. Black Hawk Safety Net recruited more than 12,000 paying subscribers and collected more than 7 million yuan ($1 million) in membership fees, while another 170,000 people had signed up for free membership, the paper said. The report said police seized nine servers, five computers and a car, and shut down all Web sites involved in the case. Authorities also froze 1.7 million yuan ($250,000) in assets. The Hubei government refused to comment while officials at the provincial public security bureau were not immediately available.