Who knew? Your fake game gold is more sought after than your real money.
According to Craig Schmugar, a researcher with the McAfee research labs, McAfee now sees more password-stealing malware designed to nab accounts of games like Lineage and World of Warcraft than Trojans that go after financial accounts.
Your bank account is still a juicy target, of course, and the single most common variety of password-stealer is still the ?Banker? variety. But for total numbers the game-breakers are more numerous. Aside from WoW and Lineage, Legend of Mir accounts are a big target.
Schmugar has a couple of ideas about why virtual gold might have such a strong lure. Most importantly, there?s less risk of serious consequences for someone who steals World of Warcraft accounts than for someone caught stealing bank logins, for instance.
But it can be just as easy to convert that game gold into real money by way of the thriving game-currency selling sites online. Many sought-after game items, just bits of code and pixels, can fetch a good price as well.
To me, it all ties back into the developing virtual economy, with a huge number of people willing to pay real money for virtual money and items in a variety of game worlds. We covered the topic in a story earlier this year.
