Xinhua has published a report titled "Hacker arrested for manipulating 100,000 computers".

The report is datelined "Guilin, March 25", but describes the arrest of a hacker in Tangshan, Hebei Province.

According to the report, the Ministry of Public Security's Public Information and Internet Security Supervision Bureau

determined that many attacks came from a large group of computers embedded with virus programs. These computers were maneuvered by one hacker via several servers both at home and abroad."

More than 60,000 of the 100,000 computers were within China, and some of them were owned by government departments and other important sectors, said an official with the bureau.

They formed a so-called "corpse network," an attack tool popular among Internet hackers, which can prevent other computers from regular Internet service or send out mass junk e-mails on thehacker's orders, the official said...

...The number of crimes taking advantage of network technologies is climbing in China. Online pornography, gambling and fraud are focal points in the country's extensive crackdowns.

The official pointed out that China should speed up legislation on Internet crimes, including enacting laws to standardize identification of network data, evidence collection and investigation.

Chinese language reports about the hacker's arrest seem to be almost identical to the above, except that the final paragraph is omitted.

LINKS:
Xinhua report in English
News365 report in Chinese
CCTV.com report in Chinese