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Half Of Chinese Malware Seeks Gamer/IM Passwords
SecurityProNews
Staff Writer
2006-11-22
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If the malware originated in China, then chances are it was designed to swipe your username and password. And most of those are targeting gamers.
Australian security firm Sophos says its analysis of viruses, spyware and spam, all of which was written in simplified Chinese, found that over 45 percent of them sought game login information.
Online gaming is immensely popular in China, estimated to attract over 33 million fans by the end of the year, or nearly half of the Chinese Internet population. As demonstrated in games like World of Warcraft, virtual goods and monies within often translate to money in the real world.
"Given the ever growing popularity of online gaming in China, this is a worrying trend - once hackers have stolen login details, they can effectively impersonate the victim in the online world," explained Carole Theriault, senior security consultant for Sophos.
"Millions of people play these games every day, but once inside the game, it's difficult to check their identity and these cyber criminals can wreak havoc, for example buying and selling items in online stores and running up huge debts without the victim even realising."
Another 7.5 percent of the studied malware was designed to grab usernames and passwords for the Chinese QQ instant messaging client. While many may wonder what benefit grabbing an IM password holds, Sophos says that many people use the same password across multiple sites, including online banking.
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