THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT is clamping down hard on hackers. On Tuesday, a Shanghai court handed down eight-year prison sentences to hackers in what some analysts are calling the toughest measures against cyber crime undertaken by the Chinese government yet.

Shanghai's Intermediate People's court sentenced Chen Feng, Yu Li and Zhang Wei to between six and a half to eight years in jail, for the crime of larceny. They were also ordered to pay fines between 40,000 and 60,000 yuan, for stealing over 100,000 yuan ($14,000) from online banks using personal information they obtained with malware.

Another man, Zhao Gang, who was said to be a co-conspirator, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for drawing the money out of cash machines, and for hiding illegal income. Apparently members of the Chinese National People's Congress have called for more control over hackers to protect legitimate businesses.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for antivirus outfit Sophos said that the eight year prison sentence is probably the toughest he has ever seen in connection with malware. He said that "Spending time in a Chinese jail for such a small reward seems an enormously dangerous gamble for cyber criminals to make."

He also noted that the amount of malware emanating from China was increasing at an 'astounding' rate. Statistics show that China saw 21 times as many trojans in the first half of 2007 as it did in all of 2006, according to the official Chinese Web security watchdog CNCERT. µ

L’Inqs
Sophos Press release

CNCERT