[ISN] Teenage hacker facing court case for data theft

Mon Jan 23 02:20:36 EST 2006

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/01/22/2003290158

STAFF WRITER 
Sunday, Jan 22, 2006

A 17-year-old high-school student identified only by his surname Hung
(¬x) has been named as one of the masterminds behind the nation's
three main hacker groups, local media reported yesterday.

According to a report in a Chinese-language newspaper, the China
Times, Hung is suspected of having hacked his way through a firewall
at the Web site of the well-known magazine Information Security
(¸ê¦w¤H) to steal customer, member and commercial information on
several occasions since last November.

The magazine reported the intrusion and theft of information to the
police.

According to the newspaper report, the case was submitted to the
juvenile court in Nantou County after Hung admitted to having entered
the magazine's Web site.

The paper said he was questioned by investigators at his school
following his final exam last Friday.

According to the report, Hung organized the Zuso hacker group -- one
of the the nation's three main hacker groups -- while still in
junior-high school and had been praised by other hackers for being the
youngest hacker.

Information Security provided the Ministry of Justice's Bureau of
Investigation team with computer records which, together with the
monitoring of their computer system, told the bureau that the hacker
had used a method known as SQI injection to gain access to the
database.

Investigators then used a newly developed data-mining system to
analyze records from one of the hacked computers, which yielded the IP
address of Hung's computer.

Investigators reportedly learned of Hung's identity more than a week
ago, but waited until Friday, the day of his school's final exams,
before confiscating Hung's computer and calling his parents to come to
the school.

Hung is a student at Washington High School, a well-known school in
central Taiwan. He was an exchange student in the US in 2004.

The media reports said that his father runs a medical clinic while his
mother runs a high-tech firm.

According to the newspaper, Hung said in an interview with Business
Weekly last fall that his "career" as a hacker began when he was a
student in the US.

He reportedly told the magazine that it took him just half an hour to
hack his way into eight Chinese Web sites and leave the message
"Taiwanese never die" on their home pages.

The report said Hung was awarded NT$10,000 for that stunt, although it
did not say by whom.