30 people were arrested, and more than 12000 merchant computers nationwide were implanted with information theft "Trojan" programs
The computers of merchants on major e-commerce platforms have become new targets for illegal theft of citizen information. In recent cases uncovered by the Shanghai police, criminal gangs implanted Trojan viruses into over 12000 merchant computers to steal a large amount of citizen information, which was automatically sent to overseas fraud gang servers. The police stripped the cocoon and destroyed the criminal gang, and captured 30 suspect in total.
In early June this year, the Minhang Branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau received a report from a well-known e-commerce platform in the city: multiple e-commerce platforms that had entered the platform reported that their customer service computers were suspected of being "poisoned". After technical testing, the police have found hidden and automatically running Trojan programs in the computers of multiple e-commerce customer service representatives, which can steal computer data and automatically send fraudulent messages.
After a large number of visits and investigations, the police have concluded a common phenomenon: the customer service of these e-commerce platforms have all encountered customers who want to customize products.
Ms. Zeng is a customer service representative for a wedding photography online store. She told the police that a customer claimed to have a large number of orders. In order to make a big business, the two of them added WeChat and the other person put the order requirements in a compressed file. She asked Ms. Zeng to unzip the files and click on them one by one to view the specific requirements. After Ms. Zeng followed suit, her computer began to malfunction, but she didn't pay attention until the police contacted her.
The victim received a Trojan program from a criminal gang
![30 people were arrested, and more than 12000 merchant computers nationwide were implanted with information theft "Trojan" programs](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/46575b3f3b8a259352c83257b2c67fb6.png)
After verification, one of the photos in the file that Ms. Zeng clicked on is a "Trojan" program, which automatically searches, collects citizen information stored on the computer, and uploads it to overseas servers.
This "Trojan" program is powerful and contains multiple illegal functions
The police believe that behind these programs is a gang that engages in illegal control of computer information systems. The Minhang police have established a special task force composed of multiple departments to conduct investigations.
The task force quickly identified the criminal gang led by Lu. Among them, Lu is the general agent, Lin and Suo are the first level agents, developing offline gang members separately, forming a multi-level, loose criminal gang.
After receiving tasks and "Trojan" files from overseas, Lu contacted and arranged for gang members to impersonate customers through instant messaging tools, add e-commerce customer service WeChat under the pretext of purchasing goods and services, and then send files containing Trojan viruses to customer service under the pretext of needing customized products, luring them to download and browse on the computer, thereby implanting "Trojan" programs and collecting information.
![30 people were arrested, and more than 12000 merchant computers nationwide were implanted with information theft "Trojan" programs](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/fdfcecb9446dbdc0d995ba384bce35d2.png)
From July 16 to 18, the Shanghai police went to 4 provinces and 7 cities across the country to hunt down 30 suspect in the gang, seize mobile phones, laptops, hard disks and other crime tools, and preliminarily verify that the illegal profits were more than 1 million yuan.
This criminal gang started in May this year, in accordance with the requirements of overseas fraud groups, using a computer to plant "Trojans" and paying a price of 80 to 120 yuan to attract gang members, and subcontracting through agents layer by layer. The lower level personnel contacted merchant customer service on major e-commerce platforms to lure and plant Trojans. As of the incident, this gang has planted Trojans on more than 12000 e-commerce computers in China, and the affected businesses have affected many parts of the country.
At present, suspect Lu, Lin and Suo have been arrested with the approval of the procuratorial organ in accordance with the law on suspicion of illegally controlling the computer information system, and 27 suspect including Xu have been taken criminal coercive measures by the Minhang police in accordance with the law on suspicion of illegally controlling the computer information system.
It is reported that the police have issued a warning to e-commerce enterprises with the qualification to collect personal information of citizens, requiring them to conduct centralized inspections of data security protection work and make every effort to build a strong data security "firewall".