Biggest Chinese hacker training site taken down

[spamislame]

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=8840

Black Hawk Safety Net, the biggest Chinese hacker training site, has been shut down by the police. The tally is: three people arrested; nine Web servers, five computers and one car confiscated; $249,000 in assets frozen.

This directly quotes the original "China Daily" story:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010 ... 440667.htm

Further coverage: Wall Street Journal:

China Heralds Bust of Major Hacker Ring
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 85828.html

Hm!

SiL

[tex.writer]

China Xinhua news agency released news this week concerning shutdown of the Black Hawk Safety Net website, an alleged large-scale hacker training site based in Hubei, China. The shutdown occurred in November 2009 and may have failed to shutdown a reported Black Hawk Safety Net back-up site.

"China Heralds Bust of Major Hacker Ring", WallStreet Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopStories

"Hacker training site reappears after takedown by China", ARS Technica
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... -china.ars

[spamislame]

Heh. I posted this in the Malware thread.

SiL

[meep]

Interesting find, nonetheless about China.

SiL, Malware or Spam as categories, what is the difference these days?

[tex.writer]

Oops--did not see Sil's entry in malware until I logged off. Ok with me to move entry under Sil's thread in Malware.

Interesting line from the Wall Street Journal article--"State-media reports described Black Hawk as offering hacking "training," which is a euphemism for selling malicious software."

The Siteadvisor entry for the Black Hawk site gives some indication of how malicous the website was:
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/3800hk.com

Associated Press followed-up their initial report with additional information by contacting Black Hawk 'customer service officer':
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100208/ap_ ... na_hacking

[spamislame]

Merged!!

Interesting find, nonetheless about China.

SiL, Malware or Spam as categories, what is the difference these days?

Well, I guess: exactly.

When I first joined this forum years ago, it was purely about email spam, Blue Security, etc.

Past two or three years: really it's more and more (for me at least) about cyber-security, malware viruses, server hijacks, etc.

I'll take it.

I'm interested in the fact that it took Google to raise this issue and have it suddenly be very much taken seriously by the Chinese government. About bloody time!!

SiL

[meep]

Past two or three years: really it's more and more (for me at least) about cyber-security, malware viruses, server hijacks, etc

Online criminal activity has definitely gotten more sophisticated and most likely more pervasive. And definitely goes beyond the scope of spamming. Botnet research by the security community is more widespread because botnet activity has been on the rise the last 3-4 years. The change is interesting to note from our end and from others for sure.

With stories such as this one (All that user-generated content? 95% is malware, spam) it makes you wonder how much worse malware/badware etc will get online before things improve.