Black Hawk Safety Net was shut down in November and its founders later arrested, state media report. The school took tuition from tens of thousands who wanted to learn 'successful attack tools.'
Three people were arrested on suspicion of making hacking tools available online, the state-run Xinhua news agency said Monday. Their business, known as Black Hawk Safety Net, operated through the now-shuttered Web site 3800cc.com and generated around $1 million in income from more than 12,000 subscribers, the report said.
The three were detained in late November as part of a police investigation that spanned three Chinese provinces and resulted in part from Black Hawk's role in domestic cyberattacks, according to Xinhua.
Amidst all the chaos of Google threatening to pull out of China. The Chinese government has announced the arrest of three individuals . The Chinese Government taking the cue from other countries around the world is showing themselves to be strict with this kind of thing. They would like to portray to large corporations and people in general that their's is not a country of Hackers and your data is actually safe in China. Some analyst feel that this is just a ploy to turn of the Google heat. China acknowledges that this kind of activity is not safe at all either for others or for themselves.
Reports suggest that wherever you travel around China there are Ads inviting people to become Hackers.
"It seems aimed at bolstering the Foreign Ministry's claim that China is getting tough on hackers. This is meant for an international audience, not for domestic criminal prosecution," said James Mulvenon, director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis at Defense Group Inc., based in Washington.
If China is going to get serious about hacking, prosecutors have their work cut out for them. On the Web, in magazines and on occasional bus stop ads, Internet users are beckoned with invitations to become heike, or "black visitor," the Chinese term for hacker.
Even the names -- "EvilOctal" and "Dark Security Team" -- make unvarnished appeals to the criminal side.
"Most of the members are really young, still students, and they are drawn by the mystique of being a hacker," said a well-known Chinese hacker who goes by the name Lyon.
"China's Internet security is still very weak, so it is a hothouse environment for nurturing these kinds of businesses."
If China is going to get serious about hacking, prosecutors have their work cut out for them. On the Web, in magazines and on occasional bus stop ads, Internet users are beckoned with invitations to become heike, or "black visitor," the Chinese term for hacker.
Even the names -- "EvilOctal" and "Dark Security Team" -- make unvarnished appeals to the criminal side.
"Most of the members are really young, still students, and they are drawn by the mystique of being a hacker," said a well-known Chinese hacker who goes by the name Lyon.
"China's Internet security is still very weak, so it is a hothouse environment for nurturing these kinds of businesses."
