The players of Word of Warcraft now have to fear a different kind of threats – still in the virtual world, yet one that has real-word consequences. Hackers are exploiting the cursor flaw (how Windows handles animated cursors) in order to gain login credentials for WoW player accounts. “Malicious software showed that it lay dormant on a victims machine until they ran World of Warcraft (WoW) at which point it captured login data and sent it to the hacking group.”

In terms of real cash value of these hijacked accounts: “Research … suggests that the raw value of a WoW account is now higher than a credit card and its associated verification data. One card can be sold for up to $6 (£3), but a WoW account will be worth at least $10. An account that has several high level characters associated with it could be worth far more as the gold and rare items can be sold for real cash.

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