Four hackers indicted for breaching gaming giants Microsoft, Valve & Epic

Four hackers indicted for breaching gaming giants Microsoft, Valve & Epic

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Gears of War 3 and US military servers are all affected by cyber theft.

Four hackers have been convicted of breaching secure servers belonging to Microsoft, Valve, Epic Games and Zombie Studios, allegedly nabbing code from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Gears of War 3, according to an announcement from the US Department of Justice. The hackers are charged with downloading “unreleased software, software source code, trade secrets, copyrighted and pre-release works and other confidential and proprietary information”, valued at over $100 million.

The group is also reported to have hacked into servers for the US military, stealing software related to military helicopter pilot training. All the information gathered was intended to be sold for profit. The DoJ says it has so far seized over $620,000 in cash and “other proceeds” related to the case. Financial and “other sensitive information relating to the companies” is said to have been breached, but customer information was apparently unaffected.

“Today’s guilty pleas show that we will protect America’s intellectual property from hackers, whether they hack from here or from abroad,” commented assistant attorney general Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s criminal division.

Those charged are Nathan Leroux, 20, of Bowie, Maryland; Sanadodeh Nesheiwat, 28, of Washington, New Jersey; David Pokora, 22, of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada; and Austin Alcala, 18, of McCordsville, Indiana.

Pokora, a Canadian, is said to be the first foreigner convicted of hacking into a US business. An unnamed Australian citizen has also been charged under Australian law for alleged involvement in the group’s hacking activities.

The hackers are charged with individual counts of “aggravated identity theft, unauthorized computer access, copyright infringement and wire fraud”. Pokora and Nesheiwat have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer fraud and copyright infringement. They will be sentenced on January 13, 2015.

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