The Dark Visitor

Chinese authorities arrested two people in connection with the hacking theft of approximately $360,000 US dollars from online South Korean bank accounts.  Since March of 2008, the two hackers had managed to access the accounts of 86 South Korean nationals:

Piao and Jin, both aged 27, were residents in Yanji, capital city of the prefecture. They were detained by local police on June 16 and 27, respectively. They transferred the stolen money through foreign exchange brokers into a bank in Yanbian.

On 17 October, Chinese hackers defaced the South Korean Soccer Association website.  According to the article, the Chinese soccer team has suffered a “Korean Phobia” in past encounters with the South Korean team.  This may have been an attempt by the Red Hacker Alliance to show that no such phobia exists…somehow.

The defacement also illustrates that the hackers are not happy with claims that Chinese characters and Confucianism originated in South Korea.

The defacment reads:

“In addition to Confucius, the Emperor and Bush…martians are also South Korean”

This came out a couple of days ago and I didn’t post because there wasn’t a lot of new information.  However, some readers have suggested putting it up and I am here to please:

South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo on Tuesday warned his cabinet over attempts by Chinese and North Korean computer hackers to obtain state secrets, officials said.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS), Seoul’s main spy agency, said it had told Han that about 130,000 items of government information had been hacked over the past four years.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang responded at a press conference:

Q: It is reported that the Prime Minister of ROK warned that hackers from the DPRK and China stole more than 130,000 pieces of government information from the ROK in the past four years, could you comment?

A: The Chinese Government opposes cyber crime including hacking. In fact, China is also a victim in this regard. The accusation you mentioned is unacceptable to China. If the ROK did make such accusation, it must produce convincing evidence.

Coming from the Korean Herald:

Police are investigating the leak of about 9 million items of personal information from the internet, allegedly obtained by a China-based hacker and misused by online Korean moneylenders.

Four private loan brokers in Seoul bought the stolen data for 15 million won ($14,900) from the hacker who allegedly broke into about 2,000 local websites in May 2006 using a computer program called “HDSI 2.0,” the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said.

More on the BILLIONS of Won lost here.

Update from Jumper:Here is a screenshot of the HDSI tool:

The breaking news today at Hackbase.com (one of China’s leading hacker organizations) is the announcement of South Korea’s preliminary hacker competition “Code Gate 2008.” The contest has a top prize of approximately US $100,000.

On 11 March, the South Korean SOFTFORUM Company divulged, that in order to raise social awareness of hackers and train security personnel, it would hold a preliminary online hacker competition on the 21st. The competition called “Code Gate 2008″ would have a prize worth approximately US $100,000.

Korean news service also reported that besides the hacker competition, they would also hold a network security conference, a defense technology competition and a network security exhibition.  Secretary-General Peter Cassidy, of APWG (anti-phishing) and others would give lectures.

The eight groups that come out on top of the preliminary competion, being held from the 21st to the 23rd, will fight it out for the approximately US $100,000 on 14 and 15 April at the Seoul Exhibition and Convention Center.

The network security conference would take place on 15 April, with experts
from five nations giving presentations on global network security trends and hot-spots, as well as network security demonstrations.

Here is more on the competition…CODEGATE.

Well it seems that Chinese hackers are taking this “2008, Year of the Chinese Hacker” thing seriously.  Couldn’t get one day into the New Year without firing a shot.  Once again, the Chinese have used social-engineering to penetrate a military system.  These guys seem to be developing a fairly good system to determine hot-button subjects that people will click on without too much hesitation.  Chinese hackers attack South Korean Military.