According to reports, 38-year-old Romanian Calin Mateias has been sentenced to jail for a DDoS attack on World of Warcraft back in 2010, where he flooded Blizzard’s European servers to prevent his in-game rivals from logging in. According to the Department of Justice, Mateias has been ordered to pay $29,987 in restitution to Blizzard and will also need to serve one year in Federal prison.
The report from the DoJ also reads, “Mateias, using his in-game avatar, often participated in collaborative events, such as ‘raids, where players joined forces to meet game objectives and were rewarded with virtual proceeds or in-game advantages. Mateias became involved in disputes with other players for a variety of reasons, including the division of loot and membership in raid teams.”
This is actually not the first time that Blizzard has gone after hackers of their games. The company has actively sought out legal means to bring down hackers and cheaters. We’ve also been seeing other companies take similar tougher stances, such as with PUBG where hackers of the game were arrested in China.