Police Arrest Two Japanese Men for ‘Hentai’ Malware Scam

Japanese Police have arrested two individuals on suspicion of committing fraud. The two persons are apparently connected with the new 'hentai' malware campaigns that post infected users' private information on the Net.

Oka Akira, a man aged 27-years from Tokyo, along with another man, 20 years-of-age, apparently cheated some people out of 5,000 victims exposed to the malware. Both the accused garnered thousands of Japanese Yen after infecting those people with the malware, a Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reports.

Before the execution of campaign, the suspects implanted a malicious code on a website with file-sharing facility. This website was made to appear as the widely played 'hentai,' else porn games.

According to the Metropolitan Police Department sources, during November 2009, the duo made up a system which plants a virus on a PC while the PC downloading the game online through Winny a file-sharing application. Once the PC gets contaminated, the private details of its user like name, phone number, e-mail and postal addresses and browsing records gets exposed online.

Both Akira and his partner would subsequently ask for a fee of 5,800 Yen from the victims for deleting the leaked details.

Rik Ferguson, Senior Security Analyst at Trend Micro, writes that the virus gathers private details of the infected user and screenshots of his PC. Additionally, it intercepts the PC's various identifiable details like browser favorites and OS version that are subsequently posted on the public websites, as reported by V3 on May 27, 2010.

Commenting on the scam operation technique, Ferguson stated that while taking advantage of the victims' humiliation, the scam utilized the virus for extortion purposes.

Currently, the detainees may be charged under the PC fraud act of Japan instead of disseminating a PC virus that the country doesn't regard as a specific crime.

The arrest on account of a scam with a PC worm is wholly new in Japan. Moreover, it is just the 2nd case when PC-virus developers have been arrested. Earlier, during January 2008, the Police in Kyoto detained a person for allegedly making the 'Harada' virus thereby breaching the Copyright Act.

Related article: Police Arrests Six Suspects Associated With TJX Credit Scam

» SPAMfighter News - 6/7/2010