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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Major Hacking Breakthrough Reported by China - newsintech.com - 9 Feb 2010

Amidst the very public outcry over current hacking and cyber attacks originating from within China, the country has revealed that it has shut down a major hacking site. Reporting that they had made arrests of three individuals who ran the site, they revealed that the Black Hawk Safety Net website gave lessons in how to hack and offered malicious software for sale.

Whilst the Chinese government deny any involvement in the recent cyber attacks against Google where a number of gmail accounts were hacked and data was stolen, they expressed that they had made a major breakthrough in cracking down on cyber crime. Black Hawk Safety Net is reported to have had over 12,000 paying subscribers, with the site teaching them how to use Trojan software. This malicious coding allows hackers to gain access to personal computers of other individuals and can result in content theft and criminal activity on remote machines. With profits of approximately seven million yuan (£650,000) in membership subscriptions, the website had a further 170,000 users on a free subscription.

Meanwhile allegations of cyber attacks from the Chinese government towards Google are still continuing. As China defends their censorship of online material, Google has threatened to pull out the country, expressing that they would no longer filter content. Whilst there are no current links between Black Hawk Safety Net and the Google attack, it may well decrease the impact of Google’s allegations.

By Maddie

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