Hacker training centre busted in China

Coders exposed

Chinese police have shut down what is described as a hacker training centre in central Hubei province.

Three men who ran the Black Hawk Safety Net have been arrested. According to the China Daily, the three are suspected of offering hacking tools and off-the-shelf trojans to over 180,000 members.

Hubei province officials said Black Hawk Safety Net was the largest hacker training site in China.

Police had more than 50 officers had been investigating the case. They seized nine Web servers, five PCs and a car, and pulled the plug on a number of Web sites,  the provincial public security department said.

The Legal Daily newspaper said the company was shut down in November and that police had frozen more than 1.7 million yuan (250,000 dollars) in assets.

Since it was established in 2005, the site collected more than seven million yuan in membership fees, reports state.

One unnamed student told the State press: "I could download trojan programs from the site which allowed me to control other people's computers. I did this just for fun but I also know that many other members could make a fortune by attacking other people's accounts."