MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil is Hackers Favourite.

Brazil has become the global capital for computer hacking and internet fraud, according to experts at a meeting in Brasilia, the Brazilian capital. 500 experts from around the world are attending the first international conference to combat electronic crime.

Brazil is home to eight out of 10 of the world's hackers, said federal police at the conference. In Brazil, the amount of money lost in internet financial fraud surpasses that of bank robberies. About two-thirds of the internet's child pornography pages are also said to originate in Brazil.

These statistics are backed by security experts from other countries who say some 96,000 hacking attacks were launched from Brazil last year - six times more than any other country.

Many of the hackers work in groups with names such as Breaking Your Security or Virtual Hell. The boom in hacking is blamed partly on weak legislation. Hacking itself is not a crime in Brazil so police have to prove fraud has taken place in order to prosecute.

Brazilian hackers often do not consider themselves criminals, saying they break into sites for the intellectual challenge rather than to steal.

In 2003, US websites were the target of the huge majority of hacking attacks.