Server found with 44 million stolen online game accounts

27.05.2010
Leading antivirus product manufacturer Symantec recently came across a submitted database with an astounding amount of stolen gaming accounts. If each account came from a different person, the amount of affected players would be larger than the population of Argentina.

The database was populated by accounts from Chinese online gamers who had their information stolen by a password checker. The 44 million stolen accounts take up roughly 17GB of space and include passwords for at least 18 online gaming websites.

The four most plundered games included Aion, which had around 60,000 accounts stolen; World of Warcraft, which had roughly 210,000 accounts stolen; NCsoft's PlayNC system, which had around 2 million thefts; and Wayi Entertainment, which suffered from 16 million stolen accounts. While online accounts are difficult to place resale value on due to hazy legalities, online auction sites have placed values as low as $6 for a PlayNC account and as high as $28,000 for a World of Warcraft account.

SOURCE: [Symantec Connect]