In the early morning of June 27, Zhang Hua (pseudonym) was woken up by a phone call from a friend who had not been in contact for a long time.
On the other end of the phone, a friend told him that his QQ account had been stolen, and that his account had sent indecent messages and pictures to more than 100 QQ friends.
"The scene of the death of a large society!" Zhang Hua sighed.
He has used a QQ account for more than 10 years and logs in several times a month.
Zhang Hua's experience is not an exception.
On the evening of June 26, netizens in many parts of the country broke the news that a large-scale incident of account theft of users on the QQ platform occurred. The stolen QQ account sent indecent and pornographic pictures to many friends and group chats late at night.
In this regard, Tencent QQ official issued a statement on June 27, saying that the main reason for the investigation was that the user scanned the QR code forged by criminals to log in to the game and authorized the login. Take advantage of sending bad image ads.
The customer service of Chaoxing Xuetong, a third-party platform involved, previously replied to The Paper that the theft of the QQ account had nothing to do with the platform.
Earlier, on June 21, the company issued a statement on the "suspected Xuetong APP user data leakage", saying that Xuetong has reported the case to the public security organs, and the public security organs have been involved in the investigation.
Relevant lawyers believe that once it is verified that black companies have stolen a large number of QQ accounts to publish indecent pictures, it will constitute the crime of illegal use of information systems.
Some network security experts said in an interview with The Paper that the QQ ecosystem is very open, and user data can be authorized not only to many game platforms, but also to other third-party social media platforms such as Weibo. During the authorization process, user data It was also authorized in the past; in this incident, more responsibility may lie on the third-party platform authorized by QQ.
Data is easily leaked when QQ users authorize third-party platforms
In 2007, Zhang Hua registered a QQ account.
Initially, Zhang Hua used QQ to chat and play small games.
Recalling the time of using QQ before, Zhang Hua said, "It's a childhood memory."
Zhang Hua was deeply impressed by the QQ space stepping on each other and the small game of fighting landlords in the QQ game hall.
He has a complex relationship with QQ. Even with the popularization of various social media, he still logs on to QQ from time to time.
Slowly, QQ has become a small corner for contacting old friends in his opinion, "I will log in from time to time to see if there is any news left behind".
In this "QQ account hacking" incident, more than 100 QQ friends of Zhang Hua received pornographic pictures and links sent by Zhang Hua's QQ account.
After the account hacking incident, Zhang Hua once filed a complaint with the platform, "Later, my QQ account was unblocked, and all the content posted after the stolen account was automatically withdrawn."
Zhang Zuo is also a veteran user of QQ.
In 2009, he registered a QQ account in an Internet cafe and used it for 13 years.
QQ is also one of his most frequently used software.
Initially, the QQ account of Zhang Zuo was mainly used to play games. At that time, the games included QQ Hall, Cross Fire, Dungeon Warrior, etc.
For him, the social role of QQ was not great at the time.
In the era when smartphones were not yet popular, he logged into QQ mainly on the computer.
In junior high school, he gradually came into contact with mobile phones with "Mobile QQ" software.
In high school, some of his classmates already had mobile phones that could log in to QQ.
At that time, Zhang Zuo's QQ account was stolen several times, and he recovered the account through the platform's security center.
What annoyed him the most was when he forgot to log out of QQ and left after using the computer in the Internet cafe, and then the people who used the computer deleted all his friends on QQ as a prank and modified his QQ account. Nickname and Signature.
He used QQ's "Find Friends" function to get back his deleted friends.
Zhang Zuo said that in junior high school and high school, QQ does not seem to have the concept of "building a group chat". Teachers send notifications more often in the class or through the campus to send messages to parents.
In college, QQ seems to take on more social functions.
The separated junior high school and high school classmates mainly communicated through QQ. The university class set up a group chat, and the teacher sent learning materials or announcements in the group.
In Zhang Zuo's view, WeChat and QQ have different user groups and usage scenarios.
WeChat is more mixed with work attributes, while QQ is "free" and has a younger user group.
As a senior QQ user, he still insists on using QQ even when the usage scenarios of WeChat are more and more popular, and he sends space updates. He even spent six or seven hundred yuan to buy a QQ member a few years ago.
Zhang Zuo has also received fraudulent links and indecent pictures from stolen friends.
According to him, who is engaged in technology-related work, the login method of QQ is to enter the account number and password. If there is a virus on the computer, it is more likely to be stolen, but WeChat scans the QR code to log in, and the chance of being stolen is very small.
The Tencent QQ account was stolen this time. Where might the problem lie?
Yuhang, an expert from Shumei Technology Black Production Research Institute, analyzed in an interview with The Paper that the QQ ecosystem is relatively open and its users are large.
Because the ecology is very open, user data can be authorized not only to many game platforms, but also to other third-party social media platforms such as Weibo. During the authorization process, user data is also authorized.
The expert analyzed, "The problem exposed by this incident may not lie in QQ itself, but in the third-party platform authorized by QQ." The expert said that in the case of so many applications interacting with each other , to do data security, including account security, will be much more difficult.
The Paper noted that Tencent QQ mentioned in its official statement that it reminded users not to scan QR codes of unknown origin.
When logging in to your account in an unusually used environment, you should be more vigilant about your security to prevent the risk of account theft.
The black product behind the hacking may constitute the crime of illegal use of the information system
In recent years, the black production chain has used QQ fraud to make profits from time to time.
In an interview with The Paper, an expert from Shumei Science and Technology Black Production Research Institute pointed out that the main purpose of black production stealing accounts is to make money through various means.
Stolen accounts or some maliciously registered accounts will often spread links to gambling websites and pornographic websites to deceive QQ friends to transfer money.
"Once a friend clicks in, the website will provide the corresponding amount of money to the person whose account has been stolen. Assume that the person whose account has been stolen has 10,000 QQ friends, and has sent a link to each friend, a total of 1 million, and the links are assumed to have 100,000 people click on it, and in the end, for each of the 100,000 links, the hacker will get the corresponding income, and the same is true for pornographic websites." Yuhang said.
In addition, according to the example of aerospace, there is another kind of situation.
For example, the stolen QQ number posted a link in the QQ space or group, showing that information such as skins can be obtained for free. After the user opened it without knowing it, he found that the phishing website was very similar to the official website. Only the website Domain names are different.
After the user clicks into the phishing website and enters personal information, the phishing website will automatically collect the user's personal information, "The more information the user enters, the more information the phishing website harvests. It can use this information to defraud, such as telecommunication fraud, or impersonation. A certain campaign worker asked users to pay a security deposit.”
Yuhang believes that the most harmful thing is not directly explicit text and pictures, but disguised as friends to send links to gambling websites, and tempt users with their own experience of making a fortune and making money.
Li Ping, a lawyer from Beijing Jingshi (Shanghai) Law Firm, introduced to The Paper that in recent years, QQ accounts have been stolen, which may indicate that there are certain loopholes in QQ's official supervision of user privacy protection, so the black industry chooses QQ. Platforms with a certain user base serve as the "crime scene" for crimes.
Li Ping believes that many users have switched to WeChat, and QQ is no longer a mainstream social software. After the account is hacked, few people retrieve it, and few people claim their rights; although the QQ account has been abandoned, there are a lot of private information and related connections. person information.
This is like a burglar entering an empty house with belongings and taking the belongings with less risk.
Li Ping said frankly that Tencent QQ officials have responded to the society at present and are collecting and sorting out criminal evidence of black gangs. If Tencent can provide relevant criminal evidence to the police in the later stage, the police will file a case for investigation according to law.
Once it is verified that black companies have stolen a large number of QQ accounts to publish indecent pictures, it will constitute a crime of illegal use of information systems.
The Paper searched the Judgment Documents website with the keyword "QQ account hacking" and found that there were 20 relevant judgment document websites. Most of the judgments disclosed that the person who hacked the account was finally sentenced to less than three years for fraud or other crimes.
A Guangxi 2021 judgment stated that the defendant Mo Mou, together with the defendants Mo Mouli and Huang Moumian, obtained information such as other people's QQ accounts and login passwords by illegal means, and pretended to be the QQ account holder to the account's QQ account holder. The friend sent a message, falsely claiming that the friend was in urgent need of money in hospital, made up a screenshot of the money that had been transferred to the victim, and then asked the victim to transfer money to his designated Alipay, WeChat and other accounts to defraud property.
In the end, Mo Mouxiang, Mo Mouli and Huang Moumian were convicted of fraud and were sentenced and fined respectively.
In this case, the defendants Peng Xiao Moumou, Mo Moushi, Mo Mouli, Lu Moude, Mo Mouli, Xie Moujing, Song Mouye and others were also sentenced for using the same method to commit fraud.
In addition, the tool used by the aforementioned defendant is the remote control Trojan software (link to the phishing website) created by the defendant Liao Moubin. During the lease period, Liao Moubin is responsible for the authorization, maintenance and update of the Trojan software through the network.
Liao Moubin was sentenced to the crime of providing intrusion and illegal control of computer information system programs.
Expert: Try to avoid reusing the same set of passwords
Qu Mang (pseudonym) has experienced QQ account hacking twice.
When Qu Mang was a freshman in his freshman year, he encountered a situation where his friend's QQ account was hacked.
"My classmate at the time, I haven't seen each other yet. After a few days, he sent me a message saying that he would charge her for the phone bill." At that time, Qu Mang felt strange, so he didn't charge it. After a while, he knew about the classmate The classmate's QQ number was stolen, and a liar impersonated her.
In 2016, Qu Mang's own QQ account was stolen.
The hacker pretended to be her and borrowed money from Qu Mang's QQ friend. "A few of my good friends really thought that the liar who hacked the account was me, so they transferred the money directly."
After being reminded by a friend, Qu Mang quickly appealed to the QQ center to retrieve his account.
Qu Mang said that the total amount stolen at that time did not exceed 500 yuan.
She guessed that the hacking had something to do with the simple password she set.
With the development of social media, judging from the development trend in the past five years, Aerospace believes that everyone's awareness of personal information privacy protection has been increasing, and the phenomenon of account theft has shown a trend of first rising and then falling.
"In the early days of QQ, account hacking was quite common, but now it is relatively rare. Now the management and control of QQ accounts is actually relatively good."
In addition, Yuhang said that in the past two years, the state has taken a strong crackdown on online fraud, and the public security system will crack down on online fraud. From a comprehensive analysis, the fraud cases in the past two years have also eased compared to the past.
How to reduce personal losses after being hacked?
From the user's point of view, Yuhang suggested that every user should check whether the QQ account is really being used.
If your account has been hacked, you should get your commonly used passwords for an overall update as soon as possible.
"We need to have this common sense of security because we're not sure exactly what kind of information the hackers got through these means.
Secondly, pay attention to isolate the birthday information set by key passwords such as bank card passwords, and try to avoid using the same set of passwords repeatedly.
In addition, try not to use QR codes, links, websites, and applications from unofficial channels to avoid information leakage.
Regarding platform operators, Meng Bo, executive director of the Digital Economy Legal Affairs Department of Beijing Jingshi Law Firm, pointed out in an interview with The Paper that network operators should follow the principles of legality, legitimacy, necessity, and integrity in handling personal information, and should not excessively collect personal information. information.
Network operators shall take technical measures and other necessary measures to ensure the security of the personal information they collect and prevent information leakage, damage, or loss.
In the event of or possible leakage, damage or loss of personal information, remedial measures shall be taken immediately, users shall be notified in a timely manner and reported to the relevant competent authorities in accordance with regulations.
Article 25 of the Cybersecurity Law stipulates that network operators shall formulate contingency plans for cybersecurity incidents, and promptly deal with security risks such as system vulnerabilities, computer viruses, network attacks, and network intrusions; Start the emergency plan, take corresponding remedial measures, and report to the relevant competent authorities in accordance with regulations.