Student apologizes for mass hacking

A student from the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies has made an online apology for his role in the mass hacking of his schoolmates' computers on Monday.

A screengrab of He Jianfei's personal page on Tencent microblog Tuesday. [Photo/nfdaily.cn]

He Jianzhi, a member of the hack team to claim responsibility for the incident, posted the apology on his Tencent microblog and Sina Weibo page Tuesday.

"I am so sorry for all the troubles I have brought to you and your computers," wrote He, who also provided solutions to some whose computer accounts were missing.

"I hope you all can forgive me." He added.

Hacking night

Aug 29 was the first day for students at the south campus of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, however most of them finished the day in an unforgettably unfriendly way, as their computers were hacked simultaneously that night.

Thousands of computers were forcedly shut down at around 9:50 pm. But what shocked the students more was a warning window that popped up after restarting their computers. The message claimed that a hacker had invaded the computers but would do no damage to any of them. He added that the incident was to show off his skills and even invited the victims to talk about it on Sina Weibo, which is China's largest Twitter-style service.

"My computer shut down all of a sudden. So did my roommates'" said a sophomore surnamed Li. "At first we thought it could be a blackout."

In addition, users found their accounts had been replaced by two new ones, which were "CWHackTeam" and "WeCanDoAnything".

The hacking incident created worry and horror, as well as anger among the students, some of whom called the police.

"It was Internet peak time for students," said a third-year student. "Many of them cursed the hacker in their dorms when the incident happened."

"It bugged me for two hours. It is far from being over with an apology from whoever he is," said a blogger with the name of "greentrees". "What if there is a second time? How vulnerable the campus network is!"

The university's technology center released a notice on its website Tuesday, saying it was a virus attack that took advantage of the system overflow. It also assured students that it had taken measures to protect the computers from similar incidents in the future.