Cybercrime is big business – and perhaps nowhere more so than in China, with many attacks motivated by nationalism. Meet the people on the frontlineIt wasn’t until last Sunday that Scott Henderson knew he’d been duped. The former US army intelligence officer, along with his colleague “Jumper” had been tracking an alleged Chinese hacker, nicknamed Lost33, who had promised him an interview. “Lost33 did not make contact with Jumper last night. In fact, it seems he spent the night changing his QQ number” – QQ is a popular Chinese instant messaging service – “and deleting all info from his blog. The website is now completely empty, except for a change to his personal data,” said Henderson on his blog.Henderson had been tracking Lost33 after his email address – losttemp33@hotmail.com – turned up in an investigation called GhostNet. GhostNet started when Information Warfare Monitor (IWF), a team of cyberwarfare researchers created by Toronto University and the Canadian security thinktank SecDev, had been asked to conduct a security audit for the Tibetan government in exile. It had found malicious software on the Dalai Lama’s most sensitive computers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/16/china-cybercrime-hacking
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