[ISN] Hacking for Fun and Profit in China's Underworld

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 00:15:33 -0600 (CST)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/business/global/02hacker.html

By David Barboza
The New York Times
February 1, 2010 

CHANGSHA, China -- With a few quick keystrokes, a computer hacker who 
goes by the code name Majia calls up a screen displaying his latest 
victims.

"Here's a list of the people who've been infected with my Trojan horse," 
he says, working from a dingy apartment on the outskirts of this city in 
central China. "They don't even know what's happened."

As he explains it, an online "trapdoor" he created just over a week ago 
has already lured 2,000 people from China and overseas -- people who 
clicked on something they should not have, inadvertently spreading a 
virus that allows him to take control of their computers and steal bank 
account passwords.

Majia, a soft-spoken college graduate in his early 20s, is a cyberthief.

He operates secretly and illegally, as part of a community of hackers 
who exploit flaws in computer software to break into Web sites, steal 
valuable data and sell it for a profit.

[...]


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Received on Tue Feb 02 2010 - 22:15:33 PST

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