World of Warcraft Hacker Group Sentenced to Jail

Last week five a group of ten men were sentenced to prison terms of up to two years each for hacking. They were found guilty of hacking and defrauding over 10,000 World of Warcraft accounts.

The ringleader, Chen, had set up a small workspace where he and his associates dealt in WoW login information. They purchased stolen WoW accounts for approximately $1 a piece. They then proceeded to empty them out and sell on the accumulated gold and gear for approximately $3. One of the group, Zhu, later started his own operation.

After numerous complaints they were discovered and it was found that the two groups combined had stolen and emptied over 11,500 WoW accounts.

Chen was sentenced to two years in jail and fined $8000, whereas the rest were sentenced to little under two years and fined around $1000. All of their ill-gotten gains were confiscated by the state as well as all the computer equipment that they used to get them.

For anyone who has ever had their account compromised knowing that the value of all your hard work sits at a couple of quid makes this kind of theft even more irritating. Let's hope these sentences serve as a warning to other account hackers and gold farmers.