14 DAY TRIAL // Two people were arrested in Japan this week for allegedly infecting Lineage II players with a trojan designed to steal their online gaming login credentials.
The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reports that Yu Nishimura, 29, a Kawasaki employee, and Kaori Tanaka, 39, a medical claims processor of Adachi Ward, Tokyo, were arrested Wednesday based on suspicion of unauthorized computer access.
According to the police, the two met online while playing "Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne," a very popular Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), and decided to hijack the accounts of other players.
For this purpose, Nishimura and Tanaka set up a website claiming to offer software that artificially increases the abilities of Lineage II virtual characters and started advertising it.
The software was actually a trojan designed to steal account Lineage usernames and passwords from victims and send them to Nishimura.
The two put game items like swords and shields found in the compromised accounts up for sale on specialized real-money market places.
The suspects were allegedly able to earn 1 million yen (almost $12,000) between April and June this year by doing this. The police suspects that in total there were over 100 victims.
In addition to the unauthorized computer access offenses, which carry a maximum sentence of one year in prison and fines of up to 500,000 yen, Nishimura and Tanaka might also end up facing charges of business obstruction, which is punishable with up to three years in jail.
NC Japan, the company behind Lineage II, is planning to sue the two suspects for damages and claims to have spent 100 million yen to develop countermeasures for hackers like them.
"We shouldn't treat cybercrimes like this any less seriously just because the items being stolen are 'virtual.' They still have real value and are worth real money," commented Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos.