China Shuts Down Internet Hacker Training Site


Use Article Email Facebook Digg Twitter Buzz Up! Share
February 9, 2010 5:03 a.m. EST

Topics: crime, crime, law and justice, technology (general), science and technology, government, politics, World
Linda Young - AHN Editor

Beijing, China (AHN) - China's government has shut down what is being called the world's largest training center for computer hackers.

A hacker training center that provided thousands of people with malicious software and lessons on how to launch cyber attacks was shut down by government officials, Chinese state media reported Monday.

Police in Hubei province reportedly arrested three people who ran an online hacker site called the Black Hawk Safety Net. The organization allegedly recruited thousands of members online and it provided them with Web site hacking techniques and malicious software, such as Trojan software. Police also seized computers and servers and froze assets. In addition, the Web sites have been taken down.

The malicious software could be used to illegally gain control of a computer and control it from the outside. 

Black Hawk Safety Net owners reportedly collected more than $1 million from hackers it recruited online. The organization recruited more than 12,000 paying members and had another 170,000 people who had signed up for free memberships.

The crackdown on the computer hacker site comes as search giant Google is considering pulling out of China after its email accounts were hacked into last month. Those hacking incidents also affected at least 20 other companies.

China is increasingly viewed as a center for industrial espionage and Internet crime. In addition, within the past year the governments of several countries have complained that their computers have been hacked into and some of those attacks have been traced back to China, according to reports.


Copyright © 2003 - 2010 AHN - All rights reserved.
Redistribution, republication. syndication, rewriting or broadcast is prohibited without the prior written consent of AHN.
License real time content for your website, business, digital signage network or publication.

[ Close ]

When publishing articles from AHN we require that you follow several simple rules and that you abide by our Terms and Conditions.


You are free:

  • To use and display the provided article text on a website or blog.

Under the following conditions:

  • You must display and attribute the article in the manner specified by AHN (but not in any way that suggests that we endorse you or your use of the work).
  • You may not remove ads, logos or tracking information from the article.
  • You may display the article on a website, but you may not use the article for any other commercial purposes.
  • You may not alter, rewrite, transform, or build upon the article.
  • You may only use provided the javascript code to request the article from our systems.

Copy and paste the following into your blog entry or the HTML on your page.
It will automatically deliver the article as the page loads.

Need more news? visit FeedSyndicate for all of your content needs

This is a BETA service and subject to change or cancellation.