Hacker Steals Virtual Billions From Zynga

A thief that hacked into Zynga's servers to steal billions in virtual currency now faces serious jail time.

29-year-old Ashley Mitchell of the Britain is in wide trouble for stealing billions from Zynga. Fortuitously for the social gaming company, he stole billions of the chips victimised in Zynga Poker, and didn't actually steal away from the caller warchest.

Zynga Poker is an online version of Texas Hold 'Em. Mitchell somehow saved his style into the game's arrangement and came out with 400 billion in virtual poker chips, vauled at $12 million. Before getting caught, he sold a third of the taken chips at a bold discount and earned £53,000 ($85,700).

Mitchell recently appeared in court where a prosecutor said that theoretically his theft was no different from a criminal stealing paper currency from a government Mint, even though it was a realistic law-breaking. Zynga behind simply make more poker chips look with the pushing of a bundle of keys, but Mitchell unruffled took money tabu of its pockets by redirecting customers to the Zynga Poker "black market."

I find myself wondering on the nose how Mitchell stole the chips, because according to reports it seems that he literally hacked into a server and removed them, but I would think Zynga generates virtual currency when a person buys it, attaching it to an account, and doesn't have servers that are simply holding billions in virtual chips, dollars, and coins. It's a trifle confusing, but the fact remains that Mitchell somehow found a way to awarding others with the chips.

Mitchell manifestly faces some serious trouble for the crime, as information technology violates a suspended sentence one-handed down in 2008 from when he previously hacked into a government website. His defense lawyer says that Mitchell was dealing with a gambling addiction and had spent £3,000 ($4,850) on online games.

For his Zynga Poker-coreferent crime, Mitchell pleaded guilty to four counts of "converting criminal property" and extraordinary count of "securing unauthorized access to a computer with aim to commit an offense." His punishment wasn't laid out thus far, but information technology probably North Korean won't be very nice, and it was all because of Zynga Poker. Definitely not valuable information technology.

Source: ThisIsSouthDevon, via Gamasutra

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/hacker-steals-virtual-billions-from-zynga/

Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/hacker-steals-virtual-billions-from-zynga/

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