The Surabaya Black Hat cybercriminal group has reportedly hacked hundreds of websites for money. Jakarta Police cybercrime head Comr. Fian Yunus said the suspects had clientele that paid for their hacking services.  

“They hacked certain websites based on client requests,” he said on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com.

He went on to say that the police investigation was focused on searching for other perpetrators and those who had paid for their services.  

According to the police, four Jakarta-based companies had fallen victim to the cybercriminal group, which also allegedly breached the security system of a municipality’s website in the United States.

“One of the most surprising things we’ve discovered is that the gang hacked a database owned by the city of Los Angeles,” said cybercrime head Adj. Sr. Comr. Roberto Pasaribu.

Three of the suspected hackers have been detained. The arrests took place after the Internet Complaint Center ( IC3 ) of the US’ Federal Bureau of Investigation notified the Jakarta Police of suspicious online activity in Indonesia throughout 2017. (vla)