5 hackers held for ‘zombie’ attacks

Five members of a computer hacking group that used "zombie" machines to attack a Shanghai-based online game company have been detained, police of Shanghai 's Xuhui District said yesterday.

One of the men, surnamed Wu, was detained in January in Sichuan Province after police were alerted to his activities by the victim, who claimed the attacks cost his company almost 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million).

Wu told police he had been hired as a hacker by an Internet firm based in Zhengzhou, Henan Province.

The company, which was operated by a man surnamed Tu, was in direct competition with the Shanghai firm in the online games sector, but also offered hacking services to its customers.

The gang members used their skills to compromise numerous computers owned by schools, and public and private sector enterprises.

Once hacked, these zombie machines could be controlled remotely and made to send thousands of access requests to their target systems.

The massive flow of data is sufficient to paralyze the target and make it inaccessible to anyone else.

In the Shanghai case, Tu's hackers targeted the log-in page of the company's game site, making it impossible for legitimate, fee-paying customers to enter.

As a result of the huge volume of rogue traffic, the site was effectively put out of service for several days, costing the victim about 10 million yuan in lost revenue.

Based on information from Wu, police detained Tu and three members of his hacking group.

All five people are now in criminal detention or awaiting trial, police said.

Further investigations found the Zhengzhou company has been involved in various online crimes, including the distribution of obscene material, hosting illegal advertisements and hacking.