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| The Trojan horse is said to have allowed Chinese
hackers to steal information from Taiwanese businesses |
A computer engineer has been arrested in Taiwan for allegedly
writing and distributing a Trojan horse which allowed hackers to
access sensitive information on the island's government
computers.
30-year-old Wang Ping-an is accused of designing the Trojan
horse (known as "Peep") which gave remote hackers access to
infected computers, and allowed them to steal and destroy data on
Taiwanese computers.
"He placed his program on popular hackers' websites and
encouraged people to download it," said Lin Chieh-lung, an official
from Taiwan's internet crime investigation taskforce. "He might
have wanted only to show off his skills, but he should be aware
what harm this could cause."
Computer crime authorities in Taiwan began to investigate some
months ago after it was noticed that confidential government data
had been stolen by hackers. The Trojan horse was discovered, and
has been blamed for the theft of sensitive data from hundreds of
schools, companies and government agencies in Taiwan. According to
some media reports, the hackers may have been based in China which
has a frosty relationship with self-ruled Taiwan.
"A 30-year-old computer engineer can't use the excuse that he
didn't know what he was doing if he writes and distributes a
malicious piece of code," said Graham Cluley, senior technology
consultant for Sophos. "If found guilty it's quite possible that he
will receive a tough sentence - particularly as it is being
suggested that the Trojan may have left open a backdoor for Chinese
hackers to exploit."
Wang Ping-an has been charged with vandalising public and
corporate property, and if conviced could face up to five years in
jail.
In the past virus writers such as David L Smith, Simon Vallor and
Christopher Pile have been sentenced to jail for damage caused by
their malicious code. In 2000, Taiwanese virus writer Chen Ing-Hau
was detained by the
authorities in connection with the widespread and highly
damaging Chernobyl
virus.
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More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
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