All the latest UK technology news, reviews and analysis

Identity theft victims to sue NCsoft

by Simon Burns

02 Mar 2006

Be the first to comment

  • Tweet this
Hackers stole victims' official Korean ID numbers to register hundreds of thousands of Lineage accounts
Class action lawsuit seeks damages after Lineage players suffered widespread identity theft

Lawyers in South Korea have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 230,000 victims of identity theft in an online game.

The suit will claim damages of about $1,000 for each plaintiff whose identity was used to register new accounts in NCsoft's popular games, Lineage and Lineage 2, according to media reports

Most of the identify thefts took place over the past six months as underground gaming syndicates stole victims' official Korean ID numbers in hacking attacks and used them to register hundreds of thousands of Lineage accounts.

As reported last week by vnunet.com, the new accounts were then 'farmed' by low paid workers in Chinese gaming sweatshops to generate 'gold' and other game-world items that could be sold for real world cash.

NCsoft has claimed that it registered the bogus accounts in good faith, and has denied responsibility for the initial theft of ID numbers that made the crime possible.

As well as Lineage, which claims millions of players worldwide, NCsoft operates popular games like City of Heroes, City of Villains and Guild Wars in Europe and the US, and plans to release the much-anticipated Auto Assault this summer. 

The company earned pre-tax profits of $86m last year on revenue of $346m. Staff who answered a call to NCsoft's office in Seoul declined to identify themselves or to comment on the identity theft case.

Do you agree?

 

Add your comment

We won't publish your address
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms & Conditions. Your comment will be moderated before publication.

Poll

The workplace of the future poll - in association with IBM

What will be the biggest change to corporate technology in the future?

89%

6%

1%

3%

1%

Connect with V3.co.uk

Sign up to our daily or weekly newsletters

Riso

Colour printing: why the bill keeps outstripping the budget

The wrong printers, for the wrong tasks on the wrong contracts

Qlikview

Magic quadrant for business intelligence platforms

Who leads the BI pack and who should we be watching out for?

PHP developer - CSS, HTML, Javascript, MySQL, Linux

PHP developer - CSS, HTML, Javascript, MySQL, Linux...

Senior BPM Developer

Senior BPM Developer (Java, J2EE, Agile, Spring, Struts...

Business Analyst

As a Business Analyst you will play a key role in understanding...

C#/ASP.NET Team Lead - Gloucester

C#/ASP.NET Team - Gloucester - My client has an urgent...

Keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies from the world's leading IT companies. IThound.com brings you over 2,000 white papers, case studies and analyst reports.

To send to more than one email address, simply separate each address with a comma.