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Wowhackers Busted - Largest Internet Hacking Ring Uncovered

11-19-2003 1:32:18 PM CST -- By Byun Duk-kun Korean Times


The Korean National Police Agency (NPA) announced on Wednesday that they have exposed an Internet site of professional hackers with more than 4,400 members. The police filed arrest warrants for two members of the group, including the leader of the group who is suspected of having organized Wowhackers, a group of professional hackers, while booking 11 others on suspicions of illegal hacking of government office Internet sites as well as those of private companies. The leader of the group, identified by his surname Hong, is also suspected of having deleted all the stored files and data of their past work from the group's Internet server while he was under police investigation. ``We are still trying to find evidence showing that they actually made intrusions into Internet servers,'' Lee Byong-ki, police chief in charge of the Cyber Terror Investigation Team at the NPA, said during an interview with The Korea Times. Lee said they have already secured enough evidence to indict the two leaders of the group on charges of violating the personal information protection law.

The 24-year-old leader allegedly gathered a group of professional hackers who won various domestic and international hacking contests to establish a Web site of hackers in May 2000. The group then illegally broke into Internet servers of more than 90 government offices and private firms to steal personal information of more than 2.6 million people and posted them on their Internet site. The professional hackers attracted a large membership by teaching their members the latest hacking skills and posting classified information about government offices and private companies. The police are also still trying to find out whether such illegally obtained information was used in non-cyber crimes. The group is also suspected of breaking into the National Tax Service's Internet server. Although cyber crimes, including hacking, have been a major growing national problem, this is the first time the police has discovered such a large group of organized professional hackers. ``There were two main leaders of the entire group and 17 top professional hackers called `wowcodes' who would each manage some 20 professional hackers with little less sophisticated hacking skills. Those 20 hackers are called overheads and they in turn each manage hundreds of ordinary members of the Internet site,'' Lee said.

The police also are pointing to the group's well-organized structure as an example that cyber criminals are becoming more organized. ``This shows how cyber criminals are growing in numbers as well as in organization,'' the police chief said. He also argued the criminals were getting younger. Out of 13 people who were arrested, eight of them were in their teens while the rest were in their 20s and 30s. The number of cyber crimes has reached over 52,000 as of the end of September, according to the NPA. Hacking constitutes almost 20 percent of all crimes committed online. Lee argued there were a high number of hacking cases, because the Internet server managers of private firms as well as government offices have little awareness of security measures and their importance. ``They need to understand that as soon as their server is connected to the Internet their information is exposed to hacker attacks. If their information is sensitive or classified, they need to keep them separately and update their security patches regularly,'' Lee said.

Click here for the original story at the Korean Times ( story in Korean )



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