The Victorian and Australian Federal Police forces last week raided a suspected internet fraudster based in Melbourne, the ABC's Four Corners revealed last night.
Neither police force has issued a public statement about the raid, but Four Corners reported police as stating the individual, known online as "Prelude Si" (a model of Honda car), had been frequenting an internet fraud forum that police had in the past several weeks taken control of, r00t-y0u.org.
Four Corners reported that the AFP had worked with South Australia Police to infiltrate the forum after they arrested the individual running it. The full program is available online.
It is not known whether the infiltration of the r00t-y0u forum is related to the arrest of an Adelaide man last week, who was charged with infecting 3000 computers worldwide with viruses designed to capture banking details. That man will appear in Adelaide Magistrates Court next month.
According to Four Corners, police said the Melbourne man had been posting on another website, Ghostmarket, and was seeking to gain stolen credit card details and to purchase his own botnet. He had mocked Australian police forces online, which a police officer on the broadcast said was "like showing a red flag to a bull". The man had not yet been charged.
Yup and after watching Four Corners last night we read in The Age this morning that the hackers have backlashed and point out the flaws made by the Federal Police by hacking them back. You would have thought the police would have created a new account to browse the forum rather than use the admin account. Or at least made that account invisible.