Botnet Used to Boost Online Gaming Scores
- Published:
- Briefs, Case Studies, Papers, Reports
- Author(s) and Contributors:
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Author(s): John Leyden
- Source(s) and Collection(s):
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Sources(s): Community
- ParentTopics:
Abstract
Teenagers convicted of establishing a network of 30,000 compromised Windows PCs used it to generate clicks and thus gain more points in a game called Outwar. Suspects in the case used the Randex worm to establish the botnet used to carry out distributed denial-of-service attacks and steal the CD keys for games, according to Scotland Yard Detective Sergeant Steve Santorelli of the Computer Crime Unit. The investigation began with a tip that virus writers in the United Kingdom were selling the IP addresses of compromised PCs to would-be spammers.Scotland Yard, the FBI, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, assisted by Microsoft, identified two suspects in the United States, one in Canada, and one in the United Kingdom. The main suspects responsible for the botnet were in the United Kingdom and Canada, both aged 15 at the time the offenses were committed.