Symantec Finds Server Containing 44 Million Stolen Gaming Credentials

A Symantec blog post reports that the company recently stumbled upon a server hosting the stolen credentials for 44 million game accounts. It goes on to explain how the owners of the server made use of a botnet to process that mountain of data: "Now it's time to turn those gaming credentials into hard cash. But how do you find out which credentials are valid and thus worth some money? Three options come to mind: 1) Log on to gaming websites 44 million times! 2) Write a program to log in to the websites and check for you (this would take months). 3) Write a program that checks the login details and then distribute the program to multiple computers. Option one naturally seems next to impossible. Option two is also not very feasible, since websites typically block IP addresses after multiple failed login attempts. By taking advantage of the distributed processing that the third option offers, you can complete the task more quickly and help mitigate the multiple-login failure problems by spreading the task over more IP addresses. This is what Trojan.Loginck's creators have done."

Damn it.

[LupidStupy]

Mom!!!! Symantec hacked my server again.

Re:Hey you guys

[The MAZZTer]

hunter2 [bash.org]

Re:Hey you guys

[rocket97]

One of my co-workers was giving a presentation once (he is a self proclaimed computer expert in every facet), and he asked us "how do I make this power point presentation full screen?". We replied Alt-F4. He did it and said "hmm that is weird", and restarted power point and pressed Alt-F4 again... after attempting it 5 times he gave up and said "Oh well I guess we will just do the presentation like this".

Re:And if I did this...

[InsertWittyNameHere]

It was probably one (some) of their client's servers that got hacked and used in the collection of the credentials. The client found out that they got hacked and demanded that Symantec explain what happen. Symantec investigated and found out.

They're not going to say "a server we were protecting with our products got hacked and was used in an operation to steal 44 million credentials..."

Re:I must be new here

[jgagnon]

It's a little easier than that... all they have to do is use hordes of 3rd world labor at low rates to farm and auction what they get, especially if they work on commission.

Re:And if I did this...

[idontgno]

We don't care about your sick perverted little secret fetishes.

Oh, "tyranny." Never mind.

Re:And if I did this...

[BobMcD]

Don't let me squash your corporate angst that you're grooving on, but you're entirely off my point, and have gone on to bend it towards one of your own.

Symantec being 'the machine' is completely irrelevant. We still use them as a tool to keep our computers protected (the effectiveness is debatable, but not the use), and so would definitely allow them more leeway than we would an individual that neither harms nor benefits us.

Our founding fathers knew this.

Our founding fathers were, by the strictest application of the law, brazen criminals. Do you think they paid for all that tea before tossing it into the harbor? Do you think they properly rescinded all those treaties broken with the native population? Are you under the assumption that open rebellion was somehow legal? Because if the answer to any of these is 'no' then you ought to be calling for their (historical) prosecution for these crimes.

Don't dilute the point with your anti-establishment crap. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants every law enforced for every infraction. That just isn't how the system was set up.