Online identity thieves have a new mission. Not content with stealing your bank account details, they are also coming after your World of Warcraft gold and artifacts, according to security company Trend Micro.


WoW currently ranks as of the most popular in the online multi-player segment and trading of virtual gold and artifacts from it and other online games on sites such as eBay has transformed into big business in the real world.



A new breed of Trojans has now been created to help feed this marketplace, the latest of which is a new variant of PE-Looked, which targets the popular online game Lineage.


By logging keystrokes it is able to record players' security details which are then passed to operators who can steal virtual items from Lineage gamers to be sold on for hard cash.


According to Adam Biviano, premium services manager at Trend Micro, much of the gaming malware being developed has tended to target China, where multiplayer gaming is particularly widespread, but he said data from the company's own 'honeypot' malware traps revealed the threat was now expanding globally.


"People might be starting to get the message in terms of banking security so malware authors are now looking to softer targets," he said.


Malware such as keylogger Trojans are circulated in the usual way through spam and infected email, however Mr Biviano said an even more successful strategy was to embed Trojans into specifically created gaming websites.


"They can target captive markets by circulating the malware through a forged website offering gaming strategies or the cheat codes that are generally found in more underground areas of the internet," he said.


World of Warcraft has also proven a popular target for identity thieves with a number of trojans reported in recent months targeting the online game. Mr Biviano said a recent search for WoW-related malware had returned 122 results.


The booming market for virtual currency and artifacts has already given rise to a new industry employing low-income workers often referred to as "Chinese farmers" who are hired to mine the virtual assets to sell on to affluent gamers seeking a quick escalation through the ranks of game.


However the practice of buying and selling artifacts breaches most game's terms and conditions, and some game developers have recently stepped up efforts to police such activities. Identity theft now opens up a whole new opportunity for scammers to profit.


The latest Trojan targeting Lineage 2 players is unrelated to a separate security incident in March in which it emerged that over 175,000 people in South Korea had had their national identity numbers used without their knowledge to register new Lineage gaming accounts.


According to reports from Dutch publisher, VNUNet, the bogus accounts were being used by groups in China to generate virtual items in the game to be sold for cash.