Safe And Secure

Hacking Software available at eBay

ComputerWorld - Programs covering the full range of hacking software, from Trojans to keyloggers to step-by-step tutorials on how to effectively hack Web sites and personal information, are now available on eBay Inc.’s online auction site, raising the concerns of one security company.

“It’s a simple matter of searching for it now” said Magida Ezzat, marketing communications manager at PC Tools.

“It’s also very, very cheap — it’s possible to even get it for free.” Although the programs are readily available on the Internet outside of eBay, the concern is that, since eBay is accessed by the general public, new audiences could become aware of how easy it is to get hacking tools. “People don’t need to be highly technical to access and use hacking software,” Ezzat said.

Although awareness of how to obtain and use hacking software is on the rise, policing and preventing the sale of the software remains difficult.

“For a Web site as large as eBay, policing is a near impossible task,” Ezzat said. Nonetheless, security-focused Web sites such as eBay are aware of the problem. “Hacking software that was available yesterday has been taken off the auctions today,” Ezzat said.

The good news is that hacking software auctions aren’t very popular at this stage. A search of the eBay Web site reveals that very few auctions featuring hacking software have any bids.

Fujacks hackers jailed in China

The four Chinese cyber-criminals behind the Fujacks worm have been jailed by a Chinese court.

Fujacks caused havoc earlier this year when it covertly stole usernames and passwords from online gamers, and converted icons of infected programs into a picture of a panda burning joss-sticks.

Li Jun, who confessed to writing the worm and selling it to 12 clients for more than ¥100,000 yuan (£6,250) was sentenced to four years in prison by a court in Xiantao in Hubei province.

Wang Lei, Zhang Shun and Lei Lei were sentenced to between one year and two and a half years in jail for their part in the scheme.

“Chinese cyber-criminals are not just hitting PCs in their own country, but affecting computer users worldwide, so it is encouraging to see the authorities taking action against the perpetrators,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

“A surprising proportion of malware written in China is designed to steal credentials from players of massively multi-player online role-playing games.”

Chinese authorities said that the majority of the Fujacks infections have been dealt with after police persuaded Li Jun to write a counter-agent to his program to clean-up infected computers.

“Despite the worm’s author writing a program to clean up his infestation, it does not seem to have gained him much sympathy from the authorities,” noted Cluley.

Chinese hackers have been making the headlines recently. Online attacks on governments in the US, UK and Germany have been blamed on Chinese hackers working for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), a claim that China has strongly denied.