The Dark Visitor

On May 29th, we posted a profile of Cn Girl Security Team, an organization of female hackers. A reporter from the Daily News and Analysis, Venkatesan Vembu, picked up the story and called for an interview.

Not sure how widely the story was circulated in the western press but it sure was popular in China.

On her blog, Xiao Tian admits that all the sudden publicity came as a shock when people started calling asking about the article. She claims to have stepped away from the “security” site for quite some time and that much of what was written was hype. Just a girl who enjoys blogging and computers. For someone who takes so many pictures of herself, it is hard to believe that this has become such a burden on her.

The Cn Girl Security Team website has been showing a 403 error for the past week and some have suggested it was done by hackers. They say this further demonstrates the low-level technical skills possessed by the group. Xiao Tian denies the rumor and contends there was a problem with the hosting service.

Either way, one more hacker website bites the dust. Hundreds remain but we got you covered.

UPDATE: Dominic reminds me that some people might not be as Chinese hacker obsessed as myself and suggests I give some links as to why Withered Rose is important.  Whoops on my part! For some background on rose, read here and here.

As mentioned yesterday and updated today, Withered Rose (Tan Dailin) is back to his old haunts; both mghacker.com and ncph.net websites are up and running again. Just a couple of observations:

1) Rose has done some scrubbing of his personal blog mghacker.com. Had to go to the wayback machine to make sure but you can tell a number of posts have been deleted for some reason by comparing the wayback machine to what is listed on the current blog’s archive. Rose has wiped out everything prior to March of 2007 and selectively edited the months still showing.

2) Not sure why but at least four of the new post on ncph.net are old posts from the mghacker.com blog:

a.

Mghacker 再现社会工程学 (29 Mar 2007)
Ncph 再现社会工程学 (31 May 2008)

b.

Mghacker 3389密码的嗅探 (29 Mar 2007)

Ncph 3389密码的嗅探 (11 May 2008)

c.

Mghacker Rainbow Table 分析 (10 Apr 2007)

Ncph Rainbow Table 分析 (11 May 2008)

d.

Mghacker 获取cuteftp中的ssh密码 (16 May 2007)

Ncph 获取cuteftp中的ssh密码 (11 May 2008)

3) Whois data shows that NCPH.net administrative contact as:

Administrative Contact:
ncph studio
ncph studio ()
si chuan li gong xue yuan
zigong, Sichuan, cn 643000
P: +86.13154663992 F: +86.13154663992

Sichuan Ligong Xueyuan is the Sichuan University of Science and Engineering. Rose founded NCPH while a student at the university. A Chinese hacker going by the name of Rodag, who was also a member of NCPH lists the university as a contact on his blog.

The contact number 86.13154663992, was noted by Jumper in an IRC log:

# jumperon 08 Dec 2007 at 11:04 pm edit this

In the second picture of Rose, he is using a tool called Metasploit on his computer. http://www.metasploit.com.

IDefense has a lot of stuff on NCPH and Rose. There are a couple of archived webcast videos about them on idefense’ website. I did a bunch of searching and found this funny tidbit:

21:41 gila poyo
21:41 you computer is hack by chinese’s hack infall, shit!
21:41 from http://www.chinahonker.com my name is tan dailin
21:41 contact us with QQ 5372453 or
21:41 tel:86+0+13154663992
21:41 my blog :www.mghacker.com or http://www.ncph.net
21:41 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~shit! you are a pig !
21:41 i found this in some machine
21:41 haha
21:41 YOUR COMPUTER IS HACK

It is from an archived IRC log. There isn’t any more context to go off of so I’m not sure who is who in this. Gila poyo is malay but I don’t know what it means.

My guess is the at the two of them are old college buddies.

4) What does this random sampling of information mean? Not much. Just wanted people to be aware that Mr. Rose is back in business and on the internet.

UPDATE 13 JULY 08: Still doing some research but at this point it is kind of a moot question… CHINESE HACKER WITHERED ROSE HAS RETURNED! Why I don’t do things the simple way is one of those questions that may never be answered. Did you checked his blog site?  Yep, Withered Rose reopened it on 2 July 08.  The only explanation given for the long absence was that he was busy but his new job allows him time to blog.  More later.

Jumper and I are in the process of looking through the posts at NCPH.net (it became active again on 14 April 08), a site previously run by Withered Rose, to determine if it is indeed the same organization.  The site went down after it received a bit of notoriety from a Time’s article titled Enemies at The Firewall.

There are at least two articles that detail hacks of Taiwanese websites but it is uncertain if it is still run by Rose.

Hopefully, more to follow.

On the 21st of June, we told you about SKSgod selling a trojan downloader called “Chinese Hacker Vampire” and the online controversy that ensued when another hacker took credit for it.  The end? No, fresh drama has been introduced into this saga.

Author of Chinese Hacker Vampire Program JAILED!

On 4 July, News.cn reported that an 18-year-old hacker surnamed Zhou had been arrested in connection with selling the trojan downloader program.  Police from Chongqing City launched an investigation into the case after receiving a phone call from an anonymous source who reported that there was a website selling the Chinese Hacker Vampire downloader.  According to the report, Zhou’s website even threatened to shutdown the anti-virus software industry.

On July 1st,  Chongqing police captured Zhou while still asleep in his apartment and he later made a full confession to the crime.  The end? No.

Silly police, you can’t arrest a vampire

Decided to visit SKSgod’s website and see when he last posted and surprise…it was 5 July.  Wait, wasn’t he jailed on July 1st?  Nope.  SKSgod is just having a real run of bad luck with people stealing his program and identity.

On 5 July, he posts an apology to all the people who lost money purchasing the Chinese Vampire downloader and promised to use his energy to create a better program.  One person in the comments section suggested that his time and energy could be put to better use. So, that was funny.

On 4 July, when the story was breaking about the arrest, he posted three separate articles dealing with the rumor.  All three postings had the same theme, complaining about how all this news was hurting his reputation.

Is he at all concerned about the poor schmuck shown getting arrested? Nope, this is all about him and his online creds.  The end? Who knows.

Dear Chinese hacker master,

Sadly, I have all these compromised computers just laying around the place and don’t know what do with them, could you please help?!?

- Confucius…sed amateur

Dear Confused,

No need to be embarrassed, we have all experienced this dilemma at one time or another. Let me offer a few simple solutions to this common problem:

1. Steal virtual property from the compromised computer. Take their game account ID, QQ number and Q money.
2. Steal real property from the compromised computer. Real property can consist of bank accounts or online stock speculator account numbers. There are many types of trojans designed specifically for getting the account numbers of online stock speculators.
3. Steal people’s private data. Remember, just like the Edison Chen photo scandal, regular people can be extorted too if you threaten to release their explicit photos on the internet. Use their private information that could be harmful to blackmail them. If you steal commercial data such as financial reports and personnel records it can be used for your illegal benefit. Also, you can attempt to control their webcam in order to fill the desires of peeping toms.
4. Use the victim’s connections to get illegal benefits. Perhaps you think your QQ number is insignificant, you don’t have QQ 秀 (unclear) or QQ money. Not so, your friends QQ numbers, your e-mail contacts and cellphone contacts are all targets for the attacker. The attacker can fake your identity to carry out all manner of illegal activity. Everyone’s personal connections have commercial worth. The most common example of this is the 12950 service that used groups of QQ numbers to send out trash/spam? information to steal money or the MSN virus that automatically sent out information to your friends to defraud them. NOTE: the 12590 service could refer to this: Optional service Game treasure box makes the mobile into a game machine. A mobile QQ can go anywhere, 12586 online entertainment (that has many strange old friends), 12590 interactive message service (that has various voice monsters), CRBT and MMS (that are full of fun, personalized ring tones and pictures that can be downloaded anytime)……your enjoyment with these features is endless!
5. Plant rogue software on the compromised computer. This will make it automatically click online advertising for profit. This can really effect your online experience as I suspect everyone hates online pop-up ads. After the attacker controls a lot of compromised computers, they can force out ads and obtain profits from the ad owners. The number one reason for rogue software flooding is that many companies purchase rogue software developers’ advertisements. Other attackers use the rear platform? to covertly click on advertisements in order to gain profits. This causes the ad owner to waste money through invalid clicks.
6. Use the compromised computer as a springboard (proxy server) to attack other computers. Any type of hacker attack can leave behind traces and in order to better conceal yourself, it is necessary to use many proxy jumps. The compromised computers can act as an agent and a scapegoat. The attacker can disseminate even more trojans and think of your computer as a downloading station. It is a possibility that network speed and performance will be improved with proxy servers.
7. The compromised computer is the foot soldier to launch DDOS attacks. DDOS attacks can earn money for internet gangs or cyberwarfare (those who engage in it) as some people will hire these internet goons who initiate conflicts. Internet gang members can carry out an attack directly against their target and then blackmail the victim. Compromised computers are a chess piece for internet gangs and DDOS attacks have become a poisonous cancer for the internet.

Yep, a little fun in the beginning with this post (I made it up)  but the rest is a real list of uses for compromised computers put out by Chinese hackers.

I swear I heard the sound of people flipping their webcams towards the ceiling after reading number 3.

UPDATE: Hat-Tip to Therese who sets me straight on the definition of QQ 秀:

QQ 秀 == QQ “Show”

It’s one of the things that you can spend QQB on. You purchase outfits and accessories to dress up your little avatar. It’s like putting on a show. Therese also provides a Flickr link to “patriotism QQ-Show.”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/keso/2421813915/

Why do criminals always return to the scene of the crime?

When we last caught up with our old friend Coolswallow/Ericool/Peng Yinan, he was giving a presentation titled, “Hacker in a Nutshell,” at the Chen Ruiqiu building, located on the Jiaotong University campus.

Mr. Peng was not very happy with our coverage of his activities…see here. My response here.

Once again, he has been invited back to Jiaotong University to pass along his experience to job-seeking students studying information security engineering…of course it took place at the Chen Ruiqiu building.

Peng Yinan offering help to future information security specialists

As an alumni of the university, he was there to assist these young students in gaining employment in the information security industry:

Students in need…how will this help?

Not sure but…could this be considered a FAIL?

Yeah, I just wanted to give failblog.org a plug…love this website!

One of the clearest instructional videos I have seen on how to use the Gray Pigeon trojan horse.  I haven’t tried to translate the video but thought it might be of interest to some of our more technically inclinded audience.  The first part describes how to use the program and the second part shows how the information is collected from an infected computer.

Video Removed (killing the rest of the posts)

Meet Demon Group, an organization that specializes in providing much needed hacking services…their fellow citizens would like to see them dead or jailed…in no particular order or combination.

The screen capture above had to be taken from a Google cache because Demon Group’s website (www.ddosx.cn) seems to have vanished from the interwebs. I have some theories on why it disappeared, which I will share later.

First noticed the group when I found one of their advertisements on Baidu Postings (Large Chinese BBS):

The group claims to provide various types of DDoS attack services on internet cafes, websites, private servers, servers…etc. They sell attack software packages and rent out specialized tools to gather up infected computers (Guaranteed to gather up no fewer than 600-900 in a single day). The contact number provided is QQ:81991.

Demon Group Spams

Demon group, you spam your services…you spam them a lot! You spam them too much! Now you have ticked off a guy named Good Good, he would like to see you go to jail, he has reported you to the INTERNET POLICE!

Continue Reading »

Danwei linked to this article indicating that the hackers responsible for compromising the Korean auction site several months ago have been arrested in the PRC.  The article goes on to describe some interesting details such as:

KBS also talked to Chinese hackers who claim there is something of a black market for Korean personal information in China. They say Koreans hire Chinese hackers to break into sites to get information, which is then handed over and sold in Korea.

There is also some limited information about a tool that was used to compromise the Korean sites.

UPDATE FIZZLE: Just got word from Jose that nothing happened with the CNN website today. Chinese hackers are starting to make me look bad and I will not stand for that!!

If this keeps up, it may be easier to list the days that Chinese hackers are not calling for an attack on CNN.

Had some serious reservations about posting this article for a couple of reasons but decided it is probably worthwhile. The cons are that there is ZERO confirmation from other sites about the impending attack and the alert posting did not list a sponsoring organization. On the pro side, it included a website that was setup on the 20th (after initial attack) that is linked in the post and looks like it is there to support the action.

So, large CAVEAT: UNCONFIRMED

Added bonus, stupid clock again:

The Announcement

At 8:00 pm (Beijing local) on 25 April, Chinese hackers will attack CNN

[Announcement] 2008-04-21 On 25 April, 8:00 pm (Beijing local), Chinese hackers will attack CNN.

Everyone, please pay attention to the issuses regarding the effort to invade the CNN website. We are requesting the support of all Chinese. If you are an expert hacker, we request you ardently strive to invade www.cnn.com. If you are a novice, we request you use DDOS flood attack or put up a couple of pieces of hacker software. If you are not a hacker, we request that you land on the www.cnn.com website at 8:00 pm on 25 April.

Try with all your might to establish a link with the website in order to waste its resources. If their website is continually at capacity for three hours, the server may just crash. Don’t forget, there are over 1.4 billion Chinese! There are over 100 million Chinese online, they won’t be able to withstand us.

Please, assist us with the invasion of www.cnn.com, this represents the honor of China over the issue of Tibetan independence. The www.cnn.com website has put out a large amount of unsubstantiated reports that are a serious challenge and US hackers have already invaded many of our websites. It is time for revenge; let us begin a new round of Sino-US hacker wars. Let them know the strength of the Chinese people.

If it is convenient, please circulate this message to all of your groups. We need support…. Currently, many of us are going to this webpage to carry out the attack, http://www.goupsoft.com.cn/Bs_Cnn.html. The first time you open it, it might not display. Just refresh the page and it should be okay.

Kinda Lazy (but genius!)

Over at the attack website of goupsoft.com, you land on an automated webpage that uses your computer and IP address to continuously “attack” the CNN website unless you close the browser. My guess is that it is constantly making fresh requests from CNN to tie up bandwidth. The graphic below even shows the number of attacks you have made on the site.

Yeah, I kinda attacked CNN 24 times…Whoops! Well, CNN never returned my e-mail either! Damn, I’m sort of a Chinese hacker now? Anyway, the only really interesting thing in that blurb of Chinese above is that they call CNN a “whore.” Really, twice.

This Attack Method Spreading

While this might be the oldest trick in the book, it is new to me so I’m putting it out there. The website http://www.chenmin.org/doscnn.html is using pretty much the exact same attack method as mentioned previously.

Once again, you land on the webpage above and it begins refreshing the CNN website in an iFrame every five seconds using up their bandwidth (Jumper explained this to me). So, I sort of attacked CNN another five,six, seven…forty times looking at the program. Here is Jumper’s full explanation from the question I e-mailed to him last night about the site:

Yes. It loads an iframe: And then it reloads itself every five seconds:

<script>

var e=document.getElementById(’cnn’);

setInterval(”e.src=’http://www.cnn.com‘”,5000);

//1000 表示1000毫秒,你可以修改并转发

</script> Probably not as effective as the Mao-inator program.

I direct your attention to the last line (emphasis mine) in Jumper’s e-mail. Number one, he dubs the program he analyzed yesterday as the Mao-inator™, which I personally find hilarious. Number two, there seems to be a slight amount of professional jealousy involved since he is dismissing my program as “less effective” than the one he worked with. Yeah, but did yours call CNN a “whore” didn’t think so! Less effective, I think not sir!

All kidding aside, this is an excellent method for incorporating large numbers of unskilled people into your DDoS attack. It comes with the added advantage of using their computers, IP addresses and bandwidth and you don’t have to train them. The only skill that is required is the ability to open a webpage in a browser and let it run. Plus, recruits who might not be so willing to stick around to the end of the fight, if tied to a computer all day, are free to do whatever they want while at the same time defending the motherland. My vote GENIUS!

Make up your own odds if this will actually take place. I have informed Jose Nazario at Arbor Networks who has been monitoring this situation closely and has had great insights.

UPDATE 1: Located the blog for Li Haiwei, the owner of the attack website goupsoft.com.cn, and my boy has some serious issues with CNN and Tibet. Lots of disturbing imagery for the whole family:

The graphic reads, “CNN- I like it. I am CNN.” Then some stuff way too small to read. The Nobel Peace Prize award you can read yourself and at the bottom Tibet.

UPDATE 2: Netcraft has a live performance monitor for the CNN webiste here.

Does anyone remember Poizon B0x from the “Sino-US Hacking War” years ago?

Some Chinese Hacker group thinks Poizon B0x is coming back on a “China Killer” rampage in what they describe as a second round of the Sino-US hacking war.  Here is a gist of a board post from April 20, 2008:

Red Alert:  Beware of the United States hacker organization Poizon B0x coming in again.

No news organizations are reporting this but [rumors] are spreading around the Internet that a new round of the Sino-US hacking war [is coming... and] a May 1/Golden week special youth day counter-offensive [is planned], we hope for a lot of support in the counterattack!

The May 1st date mentioned above is highly significant as it coincides with the anniversary of the EP-3 incident in 2001 and the start of Chinese hacker counter-attacks:

American cracker group PoizonBOx has defaced at least a hundred Chinese websites since April 4 (2001). Chinese hackers are now vowing to retaliate with a planned week-long all-out crack attack on American websites and networks which will start on May 1(2001).

At this point, it is difficult to tell if this is speculation or if it is based on some defacements attributed to Poizon Box.  I can’t seem to find much else to corroborate this post so I’m a bit skeptical about all of this.  I’ll monitor the board and report any news as it comes in.  Any offline comments or questions can go to jumper *at* thedarkvisitor *dot* com.

The leader of Revenge of the flame has taken down his website and posted a disbandment notice.

!!!We salute our lovable motherland!!!

(graphic posted in the center of this statement does not load)

Revenge of the Flame disbanded

There are actually many ways to be patriotic, we do not want to be impulsive, we should study well, struggle and take great effort to gain knowledge. Only in this way can we develop our motherland and our motherland’s strength. This is all we really wish to see happen.

The Revenge of the Flame has already halted all DDOS attacks, we do not advocate the attack, we advocate diligent study of technology. From this point on, any attack whatsoever, has nothing to do with Revenge of the Flame. If any member of our group, Revenge of the Flame, participates in this type of activity, it is an individual action and has nothing to do with cn_Magistrate or Hackerwolf. Request that everyone make careful deliberations.

(Note: I was under the impression that magistrate hackerwolf was one word, one name but obviously it is two individuals. Here are their blogs; cn_Magistrate and Hackerwolf.)

Currently, everyone on the internet is using the instrument of attack as a means to express their passion and this has already obstructed the motherland’s normal network communications. This is something we do not wish to see happen. Regardless if it is “Revenge of the Flame” or not, we hope that everyone can rationally reflect on this question.

From this moment, the Revenge of the Flame is disbanded!! If there are any notification after this, they will be posted here. We respectfully ask that you pay attention to this page.

Any attack whatsoever, regardless if it is by an individual or an organization, has serious consequences!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Revenge of the Flame exists no more forever!! We are now a “patriotic study organization” and we will take the flame into our heart! The Revenge of the Flame in our hearts can never be extinguished! We must struggle! We must work! We must turn our strengths into a shining sword spirit (this sentence may have a somewhat different meaning, not sure).

Without a doubt we must study even more, our forum has already been established. This is really our true exchange space.

http://bbs.hacksa.cn

cn_Magistrate
Hackerwolf

20 April 2008

To our lovable motherland, I say I love you!!

Located cn_Magistrate’s blog, the leader of Revenge of the Flame, here is a post from his blog on 18 April 2008:

As always, my thanks for everyone’s strong sense of nationalistic responsibility; once again, the Magistrate is grateful to everyone.

Today is 18 April, we are angry and we shall roar, the annoucement follows:

1. Prior to 8:00 pm on 18 April 2008, we invite everyone on IS (ID number 12570496).  We will have an important matter to pass along.  (This part a little rough on xlation) Please note our compatriots will find a way online, obey directions that have been put in place.
2. Tool download address, considering that there are many normal web users who do not have a high-degree of technical knowledge, we are providing idiot-type (really means for those who don’t know) tools for download. The download address: http://playgood.ys168.com/.  Everyone please pay attention to the group announcements.
3. Everyone please remain disciplined, listen to the directions of each of the group managers.  Pay attention to your own words, deeds and essence.  We are all Chinese!

18 April 2008
cn_Magistrate
Hackerwolf