Japanese couple arrested for robbing Lineage virtual characters

Japanese police have arrested two people suspected of stealing virtual characters and goods from players of one of the world’s most popular online games.

29-year-old Yu Nishimura, a company employee of Kawasaki, and Kaori Tanaka, 39, a medical claims processor of Adachi Ward, Tokyo, are alleged to have used spyware to steal usernames and passwords from players of the Lineage II Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG).

According to local media reports, the two are said to have advertised a website that offered Lineage players free tools to boost their online characters’ combat characteristics.

However, in reality, the tool is alleged to have stolen players’ credentials and sent the information back to Nishimura’s PC.

According to the claims brought against Nishimura and Tanaka, they were then able to illegally access the Lineage II game through other…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.