The usual suspects?
Have you ever thought about pulling off the perfect heist? Of course, there’s always the pesky police to worry about… but what if they refused to get involved? What if you could steal a million pounds with no risk of being caught?
Step up the latest trend in online crime. This time the victims are players of increasingly popular MMPORGs like World of Warcraft and Everquest. More and more Trojans are now being developed to steal players’ account passwords, so that thieves can get their hands on high-level characters and equipment. These can then be sold through online auction sites for large sums of money – reportedly some players will pay up to $1000 for a good character. Wash, rinse and repeat a few hundred times and you have a lot of money indeed.
As for the police, a player reporting such a crime might well meet with confusion and the injunction to “get a girlfriend” (or a life). It can even be argued that no crime has been committed because many developers state that in-game content remains their property…
Tags: character theft, everquest, fraud, trojan, world of warcraft
July 8, 2009 at 3:40 pm |
[...] Quick follow-up to our recent post on the rise of MMPORG crime. [...]