Chinese authorities today announced a major bust against computer hackers in hopes of placating recent criticism that they are not doing enough to help enhance global online security. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, local police forces have shut down what they called the country's biggest hacker training website and arrested three people linked to the site's operation.

The organization openly recruited for new members online and assisted users in creating and distributing Trojan horses and other programs to carry out attacks. Known as Black Hawk Safety Net, the site had reportedly brought in about $1 million in income since launching in 2005 through a network of more than 12,000 paying subscribers -- another 170,000 had signed into the organizations' free membership.

The reports come less than a month after Google said it was no longer willing to censor search results on its Chinese service, and threatened to pull out of the country, citing a cyber attack targeting the emails of human rights activists within the company (and almost 30 others) along with intellectual property. Curiously, the raid is said to have taken place in late November of 2009 but it is only being reported now.