A Vietnamese School Student Hacks Ministry Website

Bui Minh Tri, a student of grade XII has committed offense by intruding the website of the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET). Tri living in Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long has removed the minister's picture and substituted it with his own shirtless photograph, according to a conference January 3, 2007.

Under the minimum possible penalty by Vietnamese law, Tri will have to pay a fine of 10m Vietnamese dong (625 dollars), said Nguy Thoi Binh, director of Posts and Telecommunications in Vinh Long province.

Tri will bear this light penalty because he played a minor prank that did not seriously damage the website and he did not try to hide his identity, said Binh. Considering that he is honest and a good student, the P&T decided to inflict the lowest fine.

In addition to this hacking Tri confessed that he had attacked other websites in his country in the past several months.

Tri is a brilliant student of computer science in the entire province of Vinh Long situated 150 kms south of Ho Chi Minh City.

Describing Tri, the principal of Tri's school, Mr. Bui Chi Hien said that he is a good student with special ability for computers. He is so fascinated by the computer that he forgoes eating and sleeping to sit before it all night.

According to an official, administrators of a commercial website based in the U.S. suspected Tri of misappropriating credit cards to make purchases. When they questioned him, Tri replied in a rather uncultured manner. The official said they were further investigating to know more about Tri's activities of stealing money via the Internet.

However, Tri has been permitted to appear for the coming graduation and university entrance exams, according to reports of the local education and training department.

Vietnam has been deliberating to train their youth in IT and computer skills with the purpose to get a part of global IT outsourcing market. Nearly 20,000 people work in Vietnam's software industry and in 2005 it exported 70 million dollars.

As Vietnam stresses on IT training, homegrown hacking including dozens of worms and viruses have emerged in the country.

Related article: A New "Blackmailing" Variant Creeps Around…

» SPAMfighter News - 1/10/2007