The police’s Cyber Terror Response Center says it unmasked Chinese hackers trying to create “Lineage” game accounts by using the stolen resident registration numbers of 53,000 Koreans last September, apparently with the aim to sell so-called “items” that increase player’s strength in the game, which could have fetched W100 billion from enthusiasts.

At the time, police published only a summary of the case without any mention of the massive security breach.

Police notified NC Soft, the maker of the game, and urged the firm to come up with measures to prevent ID theft, but the company has done nothing. Police asked NC Soft to impose restrictions so that only one game account can be operated per IP address - the unique number identifying every computer online - but the firm refused. “Chinese hackers create hundreds of game accounts by using IDs stolen by a single IP address. In that case, the company should be suspicious that ID theft took place and take steps against it, but NC Soft paid no attention,” an officer said.

But an NC Soft staffer said it is difficult to check and record every IP address online. “You need huge numbers of staff to track the IP addresses of gamers playing ‘Lineage’. The idea is good, but it’s difficult to put into practice given the reality of the Internet game industry,” he said.

Police say similar tricks were used this time, and many of the fraudulent users chose Chinese names like “Xi.” The difference is that the personal data this time was stolen from websites offering freebies, while last year’s breach occurred at e-transaction sites where security was relatively poor and at travel agency websites, police speculate.

“There are so many websites that are vulnerable to hacker attacks because of poor security, including online shops operated by small companies,” a senior police officer said. He added fears that personal data could leak from such sites had been around for years, but Korean companies remain virtually defenseless.

(englishnews@chosun.com )