F-Secure details World of Warcraft scams, trojans

Players of Blizzard’s ultra popular MMO World of Warcraft are under attack by a phishing scheme that lets the attacker steal players’ gold and rare items by luring players with an offer of “free in-game mounts,” anti-virus and security researchers at F-Secure point out. This is common knowledge to many WOW players (read the official forums for proof), but not to those few of us that don’t play World of Warcraft, or security experts who don’t pay too much attention to virtual worlds.

The attacker lures the player in by using the in-game World of Warcraft chat system to spam links, which victims then click on to go to a site that looks a lot like the official World of Warcraft site. There they divulge their information (account name, login, password) to complete strangers. Once the attacker has this information they find their way to that account and unload their virtual goods to another account and then sell it for real money in online auctions in places like China.

Another way of getting robbed of your precious WOW commodities and loot is much more malicous - a family of trojans called “WOW” (Trojan-PSW.Win32.WOW ). How you get it isn’t perfectly clear (F-Secure mentions banner ads on malicious web sites), but this malware steals account information and passwords related to World of Warcraft. F-Secure describes it as follows: “The WOW trojan is designed to steal account information in order to allow a remote hacker access to the player’s account. The hacker can then logon and steal the player’s virtual assets by transferring them to another player account. Such assets are often sold or auctioned off for real-world currency. With millions of players, such trojans can easily affect thousands of users.”

A good visual walkthrough of how this might happen can be found on F-Secure’s Blog.

As always, if something is probably too good to be true, then it probably is a scam.

‘Most Wanted’ criminal nabbed stealing DS games

I love stories about stupid criminals and the story I’m about to tell you is probably the dumbest criminal act I’ve heard in a long time. The scene is a Wal.Mart in Fort Myers, Fla., where career criminal at large, Daniel Larson, 32, of Cape Coral, is attempting to leave the store with “video games in his pants and shoes.” A loss prevention officer at the 1619 Del Prado Blvd store confronts him and he tries to flee but the criminal is quickly detained until the police arrived. When police arrive they find $120 worth of Nintendo DS games on the moron.

Now this might be an ordinary story if it was just a case of shoplifting, but it turns out that Larson is on the Lee County Most Wanted List after he managed to get out of jail (on another larceny charge on Sept. 5) with a fake I.D. So here’s this guy shoplifting at Wal.Mart with an active warrant for his arrest already outstanding and he gets take down by - of all people - a security officer. Larson is a career criminal with two convictions for armed robbery with a deadly weapon in 1999 and 2004, and another 1999 conviction for kidnapping.

Larsen later told police that he was going to sell the video games to fuel his long standing heroin addiction.

Larsen’s adventure will cost him. He now faces such charges as violating pre-trial supervision, larceny, resisting a property recovery retail merchant, using false identification, forgery, violating parole and all the other charges he faced before he managed to escape jail.

Source: News Press

Atticus Clothing teams with Vogster for CrimeCraft

Vogster Entertainment has signed yet another partnership to being name brand apparel into its gritty urban gang-themed MMO, CrimeCraft. This time out it’s a partnership with Atticus Clothing to incorporate the brand’s apparel in the game. Atticus Clothing is an alternative fashion brand made by musicians, for musicians. Gamers will be able to choose from real-world Atticus designs when customizing their characters, or outfitting their entire gang in CrimeCraft.

Vogster also announced that multiple Atticus t-shirt designs will be included as in-game items for CrimeCraft copies purchased through its retail and online distribution partners. For more details on this pre-order promotion offer, visit www.crimecraft.com/offers.
CrimeCraft will be released in North American on August 25, 2009 and is currently in open beta.

File sharing site The Pirate Bay going legit

You can’t make this stuff up. Stockholm, Sweden-based Global Gaming Factory X AB (or GGF, if you like) announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the notorious The Pirate Bay website (www.thepiratebay.org) and plans to legitimize it. Won’t regular users of the web site be surprised! Technology company Peerialism has developed next generation file-sharing technology that it plans to roll out on the web site, along with a new business model that allows compensation to content providers and copyright owners. The responsibility for, and operation of the site will be taken over by GGF in connection with closing of the transaction, which is scheduled to happen sometime in August.

GGF has also entered into an agreement to acquire all the shares in Peerialism AB. Peerialism AB is a homegrown software technology company with origins in KTH Royal Institute of Technology and SICS, Swedish Institute of Computer Science. The deal will give GGF control of the company new file sharing technology and employees.

One of the company’s biggest road blocks? Financing. GGF says that it intends to issue new shares in order to obtain the necessary financing for the acquisition. We’ll keep you posted.

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EA signs APB distribution deal

Electronic Arts will be the distributor of record for Realtime World’s upcoming gang themed MMO, All Points Bulletin, the company announced at its E3 press conference. EA will handle distribution and marketing in North America and Europe, while Realtime Worlds will handle the game when it launches. The game will be released in early 2010.

In case you didn’t know, Realtime Worlds was founded by David Jones, creator of Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto 1 & 2 and Crackdown. Realtime Worlds’ latest project takes the universal theme of crime and punishment as players choose sides as either a law enforcement agent or a gang member. This is all mixed into a persistent, open world multiplayer setting in a modern, crime-ridden city.

APB is set in an open-world urban environment where fame, fortune and a fair amount of violence awaits players. Some players will achieve this by feeding on the city, its people and its businesses as one of its many criminals. Some will live by a higher code and do everything in their power to bring justice to those players who are on the wrong side of the law. Besides the law of the street or the law of the land, players will have access to a customization system that lets them personalize their identity, looks, clothing, vehicles and even music.

Find out more about APB at www.apb.com.

ESA Applauds San Jose Piracy Conviction

The ESA is excited that someone will be locked up for ten months and have to pay them $5,000 USD. Take that, person with whom the ESA is very displeased. The Entertainment Software Association today gave the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara a high five a soul kiss for the recent jail sentence imposed on a California game pirate.

This pirate - who is not to be confused with the kind of pirate that takes American captains hostage - is named Khuong Van Truong. At an April 22, 2009 hearing, Judge Rene Navarro sentenced Van Truong of San Jose, CA to 10 months in jail and ordered him to pay the ESA $5,000 in restitution for illegally pirating entertainment software.

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ESA Applauds Pirate Bay Convictions

The Entertainment Software Association issued a statement this afternoon applauding the conviction and sentencing of key members of the infamous Torrent site, Pirate Bay. Key members of the Piracy group and site, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundstrom, were recently found guilty of intellectual property rights by creating and facilitating a forum that illegally distributed copyrighted products via Torrents.

Pirate Bay admins Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde were found guilty in the case, along with Carl Lundström, who was accused of financially backing the five-year-old online operation. Each were sentenced to one year in prison, and ordered to pay damages in the amount of 30 million kronor (that’s roughly $3.6 million USD) to various music, movie and video game publishers.

“Piracy is the single greatest threat to the development and release of innovative and creative entertainment software that consumers demand and enjoy. It’s a job killer in an economy that needs millions more jobs, not less,” said Michael D. Gallagher, CEO of the ESA, which represents U.S. computer and video game publishers. “This decision confirms that the harm being inflicted on creators of digital works by BitTorrent sites like The Pirate Bay will not be tolerated, and that such actions are subject to criminal sanctions.”

The Pirate Bay convictions come hot on the heels of a new Swedish law that makes it easier to identify and prosecute individuals and groups that use file-sharing by requiring Internet service providers to disclose the identities of individuals’ Internet protocol-addresses.