The number of identity theft victims linked to the Lineage online game looks set to surpass 1 million. If all the potential legal cases turn out to be successful the game's developer could face a legal bill of over $1 billion, with lawyers promising claimants $1,000 each in compensation.
The number of South Korean identity theft victims connected to the Lineage online games is approaching the 1 million mark according to local authorities, vnunet.com reports.
Police announced that the number of victims of ID theft connected to the online game is between 980,000 and 1.22 million. However, the game developer, NCsoft says it has received confirmation from just over 175,000 people in South Korea.
Law enforcement agencies also report that they have traced e-mail addresses to China. Approximately 1,500 different IP addresses were used to connect to the illegal game accounts.
The criminals simply steal the personal identification numbers of South Korean citizens, using them to register for the online games. The game accounts are then 'farmed' by low-paid Chinese workers who carry out hours of routine actions to generate virtual gold and other valuables. Later those virtual objects can be exchanged for real world money. NCsoft said that it has since tightened up its registration procedures.
A marked increase in the growth of account records was noted last October, with over 1 million new players being registered using just seven e-mail accounts. Today the number of active game accounts stands at about 3-4 million. Every four months the number of new users grows by 1 million, but the game developers are reacting to the problem very slowly.
Police have suggested that the scale of the private data leak could have resulted from a deal between Korean online-shops and their subcontractors in China. Whatever the cause, the identity theft victims are now planning to file a legal complaint against NCsoft. South Korean lawyers are preparing a collective lawsuit, demanding that those affected be paid $1,000 each. It means the compensation claim could theoretically surpass $1 billion.
“Even if every third victim joins the collective lawsuit, the game developers will still face a legal battle that could cost them over $300 million. In any case the costs will be colossal: legal fees, damage to their reputation and compensation payments," Denis Zenkin, marketing director at InfoWatch, points out.
Source: vnunet.com
