Chinese Court Sentenced Eleven Hackers Up to Three Years Jail

A Chinese court announced imprisonment of up to three years to 11 persons on December 16, 2009 for their alleged role in the creation and distribution of computer virus that had the capability of stealing usernames and passwords of online games.

The convicts were also asked to pay compensation of 830,000 Chinese Yuan (US$ 120,000) for their malicious activity. A dozen of other members of the group would be soon faced punishment for distributing virus and harnessing 30 Million Chinese Yuan (US$ 4.4 Million).

As per the reports, they made around 950,000 Chinese Yuan (US$ 140,000) by selling hacked equipments and virtual money.

Among the 11 convicts, Zeng Yifu and Lv Yizhong were charged of creating "Trojan Horse" viruses used for stealing usernames and passwords of online games, whereas Yan Renhai, Chen Huiting and others were charged for using those viruses to pilfer virtual money to make illegal gains, as reported by UPI on December 16, 2009.

Zeng and Lv made US$ 94,600 in illegal gains. Zeng was sentenced imprisonment of 2 1/2 years and Lv would have to spend three years in jail, while Chen would face jail of two years and Yan two years, eight months.

As per the security experts, reports of cyber criminals' arrests and court verdicts have become common in China since the country has made cyber laws more stringent to deal with the problem. The government has bound to tighten its cyber laws because cyber criminals have started working in organized way - like division of labor to design malware, distribution of malware and profit from data stolen.

Another Chinese court has recently convicted five people and sentenced imprisonment after finding them involved in cyber attack that had blocked Internet services in several provinces. Convicted people had launched an attack against rival game company in May 2009, which led to a lot of technical problems and ultimately broke down regional network.

Commenting on the issue, security experts have said that rising popularity of online games in China has contributed significantly to the escalation of cyber attacks in the country. Hackers generally steal virtual equipments such as weapons, gold coins and armors from hacked online game accounts and sell them to other players.

Related article: Chinese Hackers Threatening Korean Game Sites

» SPAMfighter News - 25-12-2009

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