Chinese hackers accused of mass theft relating to online game Lineage in South Korea
Chinese hackers were accused of being involve in the recent mass theft of private information from tens of thousands of people linked to the popular online game "Lineage" in South Korea. The game is operated by NCSoft. The accusation is from GEOT, a network security company in South Korea.
During the period from May 2005 to February 2006, South Korea reported about 4,000 online game theft cases, in which South Korean online gamers were hacked via hacking programs known as malware and lost their online game accounts, passwords, as well as virtual items, according to GEOT.
The hacking programs are capable of stealing personal information, and was found to be embedded into certain websites, and would secretly infect the computers of internet users when they visited these websites. The malware allows hackers to find the login name and password of online games and sends them back automatically via email to Chinese websites. GEOT said that most of these programs were developed by Chinese hackers with the aim of stealing virtual items used in online games from South Korean players.
