Symantec discovers 44 million stolen gaming accounts

Here’s another reason as to why you should consistently practice safe online gaming. Antivirus company Symantec has revealed that they’ve uncovered a staggering 44 million stolen gaming accounts. What’s even more surprising was that these accounts were being validated by a Trojan called Trojan.Loginck that was being distributed to infected computers.

According to Symantec’s blog, the server that housed these stolen accounts is part of a distributed password checker that targets Chinese gaming websites. The stolen info comes not only from logins of specific games, but also user login accounts from sites that host online games.

Credentials for at least 18 gaming websites were found on this server, including those for World of Warcraft, Aion, and PlayNC (an online gaming account shared by several NC Soft titles such as Guild Wars and City of Heroes.). There were about 210,000 stolen WoW accounts on the server and roughly 60,000 stolen Aion accounts.

Symantec explained that the reason the thieves were using the Trojan is to determine if these accounts are valid and therefore, lucrative. For example, according to Symantec’s research a WoW account can range from $35 (if you only have say, a level 1 toon on that account) to $28,000 (if you have a stable of uber-geared, high level toons).

If you don’t play on a Chinese server then you probably have little to worry about. Still, it’s good practice to change your passwords every so often to protect yourselves. If you’re a WoW player, Blizzard sells an authenticator to help protect your passwords. It’s a mere $6.50 so it doesn’t hurt to buy one.

Read [Symantec blog] Also Read [Network World]