Hacking for Fun and Profit in China's Underworld

By David Barboza
The New York Times
February 1, 2010

CHANGSHA, China -- With a few quick keystrokes, a computer hacker who goes by the code name Majia calls up a screen displaying his latest victims.

"Here's a list of the people who've been infected with my Trojan horse,"
he says, working from a dingy apartment on the outskirts of this city in central China. "They don't even know what's happened."

As he explains it, an online "trapdoor" he created just over a week ago has already lured 2,000 people from China and overseas -- people who clicked on something they should not have, inadvertently spreading a virus that allows him to take control of their computers and steal bank account passwords.

Majia, a soft-spoken college graduate in his early 20s, is a cyberthief.

He operates secretly and illegally, as part of a community of hackers who exploit flaws in computer software to break into Web sites, steal valuable data and sell it for a profit.