Science/Tech

Pre-Teens Developing Malware to Steal Online Gamers' Data: Report

By Affirunisa Kankudti | Update Date: Feb 11, 2013 09:14 AM EST

Today, when most of the adults can't keep a track of the electronic devices that are invading our lives, some pre-teens have been reported to be able to write malware to steal login information of online gamers.

The findings are part of Q4 2012 Community Powered Threat Report released by AVG Technologies N.V.

Stealing online gamers' login details isn't as trivial as it sounds because people who play games online give out personal information like bank details to make online purchases. Also, most people use the same ID for accessing social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, thus making them targets for identity thefts and bullying.

Although many teens report hacking sites just for thrill and competing with peers, the risk of these children growing up to become interested in more serious cyber crime is high, said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Chief Technology Officer at AVG Technologies.

This month, a British court sentenced an 18-year old cyber-attacker after he and his friends attacked sites like PayPal and Visa. The Associated Press had reported that PayPal claimed the disruption in their site amounted to a loss of 3.5 million pounds or nearly $5.5 million.

"We have now seen a number of examples of very young individuals writing malware, including an 11-year-old from Canada. The code usually takes the form of a basic Trojan written using the .NET framework, which is easy to learn for beginners and simple to deploy via a link in an email or posted on a social media page," said Ben-Itzhak, in a news release from AVG.              

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