"Yanghao" platform has become an important part of the network black production chain experts call
Social accounts strictly implement the real-name system
● The “Yanghao” platform is an important part of the cyber hacking industry chain.
Cyber hacking refers to industries that use illegal means to obtain benefits through the Internet, showing the characteristics of tight industrial chain organization, cross-platform crimes, internal and external collusion, and serious consequences.
● Various online platforms should develop a more complete account registration system, fully implement real-name registration, face recognition and other registration methods, and conduct further review of irregular operations such as centralized large-scale registration
● Criminal behaviors such as online fraud have formed a relatively mature criminal pattern, with clear division of labor in each link, and criminal methods constantly being renovated.
At present, there are still relatively large technical loopholes in the network platform, and technical supervision and legal supervision need to be further strengthened to deal with the increasing incidence and complexity of cyber crimes.
□ Our reporter Han Dandong
□ Su Xinyu, an intern from our newspaper
Recently, in the "Net Net 2020" cluster campaign of the Ministry of Public Security, the network security department of the Xuzhou City Public Security Bureau of Jiangsu Province successfully destroyed a huge black production platform that provides instant messaging tools for online fraud, gambling and other crimes to "maintain account" and trade— -Xiaoguo platform, arrested 84 criminal suspects, concatenated more than 1,300 various online fraud cases, involving more than 50 million yuan.
According to reports, the Xiaoguo platform is a "number-raising" platform with more than 200 million QQ accounts.
The platform manages these QQ numbers in batches, and there is almost no real-name authentication, which provides convenience for criminals to use QQ to conduct illegal and criminal activities.
In reality, criminals use social accounts to commit crimes frequently. How did these numbers come from?
In this regard, a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily conducted an interview.
Buy stolen social accounts
Implement online fraud
Police investigations found that Xiaoguo platform is like an e-commerce intermediary platform for QQ accounts. The platform client has 120 functions such as batch unbinding, rebinding, password retrieval, and unfreezing of QQ accounts.
At the same time, the QQ account on the Xiaoguo platform can be bought and sold at will, and the price varies from a few yuan to tens of thousands of yuan depending on the level of the QQ account.
The QQ account sold by the platform involves many types of online fraud cases.
It is understood that in addition to the QQ account, WeChat account is also the main tool for criminals to commit crimes, and it can also be easily bought on some platforms.
A reporter from the Rule of Law Daily found that fraudulent purchases of social accounts are only one of the ways to obtain accounts. In addition, there are stolen accounts and leased accounts.
Cheng Muyang (pseudonym), a college student from a university in Xi’an, stated that he had stolen his QQ account during the epidemic this year: “At that time, I received a document from a university student. The content of the document is closely related to the background of the times. The title is'College notice due to the impact of the 2020 epidemic To the start time of each class and all levels... "After clicking, there is no content in the document. Two or three minutes later, QQ prompts my account to log in at a different place. If it is not me, please change the password. Then I realized my account. K."
"After realizing that the account was stolen, I immediately changed and reset my password, and recovered my account in less than 5 minutes. However, when I logged in again, I found that my account had sent loan notes to QQ friends and QQ groups within these 5 minutes. Advertisements, unknown links, or chatting with friends to borrow money in my tone, the general content is "Are you there? How are you doing? I am a bit tight recently and want to make an investment, can I borrow some money?" Wait, but good None of my friends were fooled."
Coincidentally, Dai Yu (a pseudonym) from a university in Wuhan also stated that he had stolen his QQ account in early 2019: "My roommate sent me a link and said to help click it. I clicked it without thinking, but at that time My roommate’s number has been stolen. When I re-logged into QQ again, it showed that I could not log in and I needed to retrieve my password. After about three or four friends verified, I recovered my account. Later I found out that I sent a group message. A pile of small advertisements and links, as well as information about borrowing money from some friends, a few younger brothers and sisters who didn't contact me often transferred money to me, and then I paid them back out of my pocket, a total of about 600 or 700 yuan. "
In addition, a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" found that another business is active on social platforms. The advertisement reads: "Receive V at a high price, rent if you don't want to sell it, 180/day" "Rent WeChat and add me, long-term Valid ""Registration for one year, binding mobile phone, transaction records" "WeChat rental part-time requirements: no new account, 50 or more friends, binding bank card".
It is understood that the publisher uses a high commission price of tens to hundreds of yuan per day, or even thousands of yuan, to attract some users to actively give up or rent their account numbers and passwords.
Subsequently, it was convenient to use the rented account to spread pornographic, gambling, drug and other bad information or fraudulent information, resulting in the disclosure and use of user identity information, and personal or relatives and friends' funds were damaged.
Cybercrime is escalating
Account maintenance is suspected of violating the criminal law
The Xiaoguo platform has more than 200 million QQ accounts, and has concatenated more than 1,300 various online fraud cases, involving more than 50 million yuan. What problems are exposed behind such an astonishing number?
During the interview, Zheng Ning, director of the Law Department of the School of Cultural Industry Management of Communication University of China, said: "The'Yanghao' platform is an important part of the cyber hacking industry chain. Cyber hacking is an industry that uses illegal means to obtain benefits through the Internet. Internet Black industry exhibits the characteristics of tight industrial chain organization, cross-platform crimes, internal and external collusion, and serious harm and consequences. Severely cracking down on cyber black production should become an important task of network ecological governance."
Wang Yanhui, a lawyer at Shanghai Hengyanda Law Firm, said: First, as people’s dependence on the Internet has deepened in recent years, many traditional crimes have gradually changed to be conducted online, and the situation of cybercrimes has become increasingly severe; Fraud and other criminal acts have formed a relatively mature crime model, with clear division of labor in each link, and continuous renovation of criminal methods and means. Third, there are still large technical loopholes in the network platform, and technical supervision and legal supervision need to be further strengthened. Respond to the increasing incidence and complexity of cybercrime.
What legal responsibilities should the "keeping account" platform and account dealers bear?
In this regard, Zheng Ning said that the "holding account" platform and account merchants may constitute the crime of illegally using the information network under Article 287 of the Criminal Law and the crime of assisting information network criminal activities.
Use the information network to carry out one of the following acts. If the circumstances are serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and a fine or fine: (1) Set up for fraud, teach criminal methods, make or sell prohibited or controlled items Websites and communication groups for illegal and criminal activities; (2) Publishing information about the production or sale of drugs, guns, obscene materials and other prohibited, controlled items, or other illegal and criminal activities; (3) Publishing for fraud and other illegal and criminal activities informational.
If a unit commits the crime mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the unit shall be fined, and the person in charge and other persons directly responsible shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the first paragraph.
If the acts in the preceding two paragraphs constitute other crimes at the same time, they shall be convicted and punished in accordance with the more severe punishment.
Zheng Ning said that Article 287 bis of the Criminal Law stipulates that knowing that others use information networks to commit crimes, provide technical support such as Internet access, server hosting, network storage, and communication transmission for their crimes, or provide advertising promotion and payment. If the circumstances are serious, such assistance as settlement shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, together with a fine or a fine.
If a unit commits the crime mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the unit shall be fined, and the person in charge and other persons directly responsible shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the first paragraph.
If the acts in the preceding two paragraphs constitute other crimes at the same time, they shall be convicted and punished in accordance with the provisions of the heavier punishment.
"In addition, buying and selling QQ accounts is also suspected of infringing on citizens' personal information." Zheng Ning said that according to Article 253 of the Criminal Law, in violation of relevant state regulations, selling or providing citizens' personal information to others, if the circumstances are serious, shall be punished for three. Fixed-term imprisonment or criminal detention under one year, concurrently or solely with a fine.
In Wang Yanhui's view, the main criminal behavior of the "Yanghao" platform and the account company is to provide other criminal suspects with QQ numbers for crimes, which is an act of helping crime.
According to the fact that the purchased QQ number is used for different crimes, the "keeping account" platform and the account company may be suspected of fraud, opening a casino, and other crimes.
At the same time, according to the ninth amendment of the Criminal Law, the behavior of the above-mentioned criminal suspect may also constitute the crime of helping network information criminal activities.
The actions of Xiaoguo platform and account merchants have been suspected of violating criminal law, so they may bear corresponding criminal liabilities.
Improve the account registration system
Timely fight against crime
Regarding the problem of having 200 million QQ accounts on the "Yanghao" platform without real-name authentication, Zheng Ning said bluntly: "According to Article 24 of the Cyber Security Law, network operators provide users with network access, domain name registration services, and For fixed telephones, mobile phones and other network access procedures, or to provide users with information release, instant messaging and other services, when signing agreements with users or confirming the provision of services, users should be required to provide real identity information. If users do not provide real identity information, network operations Article 61 of the Cyber Security Law stipulates that network operators violate Article 24, paragraph 1, of this law, failing to require users to provide true identity information, or to those who do not provide true identity information. If the user provides related services, the relevant competent department shall order correction; if the user refuses to correct or the circumstances are serious, a fine of 50,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan shall be imposed, and the relevant competent department may order the suspension of relevant business, suspension of business for rectification, closure of the website, Revocation of relevant business permits or business licenses, and the directly responsible person in charge and other directly responsible persons shall be fined 10,000 yuan up to 100,000 yuan."
Zheng Ning said that the platform should perform reasonable review obligations, otherwise it will have to bear corresponding responsibilities, but in practice, it is easy for criminals to take advantage of the loopholes.
In this regard, Wang Yanhui believes that social platforms, as chat software service providers, should assume corresponding regulatory responsibilities.
"This incident shows that there are still large technical loopholes in social platforms, and even some loopholes in program review. These loopholes are also areas that need to be adjusted and improved urgently."
Is it illegal to steal account hire purchase accounts?
Zheng Ning said: "The act of account theft may constitute the crime of damaging computer information systems. According to Article 286 of the Criminal Law, it violates national regulations and deletes, modifies, adds, or interferes with computer information system functions, causing the computer information system to fail. Normal operation with serious consequences shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention; especially serious consequences shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of more than five years. In violation of national regulations, data and applications stored, processed or transmitted in computer information systems shall be deleted, Modifications or additions that have serious consequences shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph. Deliberately making and spreading computer viruses and other destructive programs that affect the normal operation of the computer system, with serious consequences, shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the first paragraph. At the same time, it may also It constitutes a crime of infringing on citizens’ personal information."
Zheng Ning said that renting and selling accounts also violated the platform's agreement and was a violation of regulations.
WeChat clearly stipulates in the "Tencent WeChat Software License and Service Agreement" that WeChat users have the right to use their accounts, but they cannot rent or transfer their accounts to others, nor can they rent or borrow their WeChat accounts.
The platform has the right to deal with users who violate the regulations.
If the purpose of renting and selling the account is used for other crimes, it may constitute a helper for other crimes.
Wang Yanhui said that account theft or renting may constitute a crime of infringement of freedom of communication according to the circumstances. If the account is stolen or rented for other crimes, it may also constitute other crimes.
If it constitutes a crime, according to the crime and the circumstances of the crime, you need to bear the corresponding criminal punishment.
As for the act of renting and selling an account, if the person who knows that the account is purchased and leased uses the account for crime, the renter and seller will also be suspected of illegal crimes and bear corresponding criminal penalties.
How to manage this phenomenon?
Zheng Ning suggested: First, strengthen source governance. When registering an account, the platform should strictly implement the requirements of the real-name system, and adopt technical measures to prevent malicious registration; second, strengthen the protection of citizens' personal information to avoid personal account theft; Third, increase administrative law enforcement and criminal strikes.
In Wang Yanhui's view, for the current criminal phenomenon, supervision should be carried out from several aspects.
First of all, various online platforms should develop more complete account registration systems, fully implement real-name registration, face recognition and other registration methods, and conduct further review of irregular operations such as centralized large-scale registration.
Secondly, from the technical aspect, setting up some sensitive mechanisms, such as the screening of sensitive words, mass release of the same information, etc., will trigger the supervision mechanism to further determine whether there are illegal and criminal acts.
Finally, the public security organs should intensify network supervision, grasp the laws, main characteristics and development trends of cybercrime, try to prevent crimes by means of network monitoring and other means, and promptly crack down on criminal acts after cybercrimes occur.