China shuts down biggest hacker training site, arrests three

Concerns of internet security in the country have heightened since the cyber attacks last month which targeted Google and 20 other companies in the U.S. were reported to have originated from China.

Police in the central province of Hubei began probing Black Hawk Safety Net after finding some of its members used malicious programs provided by the site to commit cybercrimes, according to newspapers including the People's Daily, the official paper of the Communist Party.

Black Hawk Safety Net and similar increasingly popular Web sites in China offer chat forums and hacking training tools like videos to members, some of whom pay fees for extra services. Black Hawk collected 7 million yuan (US$1 million) in user fees paid by a portion of its 180,000 members.

The three arrests are the first made under revisions to China's criminal law last year that banned the design and distribution of hacking tools, the reports said. Those revisions, which marked China's first law protecting the public from cyber data theft, were one of several measures the Chinese government unveiled against cybercrime in last year.

Black Hawk Safety Net and similar increasingly popular Web sites in China offer chat forums and hacking training tools like videos to members, some of whom pay fees for extra services. Black Hawk collected 7 million yuan (US$1 million) in user fees paid by a portion of its 180,000 members, the reports said.