A “stupid prank” ends in prison. For a DDoS attack on the World of Warcraft servers, someone must now serve time behind bars.
The Romanian Calin Mateias attacked the World of Warcraft servers with a DDoS attack in 2010. He has now been extradited to America, and a court has issued a ruling for this crime. The sentence also includes one year in prison.
What happened? Prosecutors stated that Mateias was an avid player of World of Warcraft. He participated in guilds and raids with his character. Over time, he repeatedly got into disputes with his fellow players regarding loot distribution or membership in a raid group. These disputes later resulted in a DDoS attack aimed at harming his fellow players. Thousands of players were affected by the server outage.
What is a DDoS attack? A DDoS attack floods an online service such as a website or game with thousands of requests. The server becomes overloaded while processing the data. It slows down initially and eventually completely crashes, leading to the outage of the respective service.
What sentence was imposed? Mateias was sentenced to pay nearly $30,000, which Blizzard incurred in attempting to fend off the attack and its consequences. Additionally, he now faces one year in prison. The fact that his character name was also a variation of the name “Dr. Mengele,” a doctor from the Nazi era who conducted cruel experiments on prisoners, likely didn’t help his case in court either.
According to prosecutors, Mateias’ motive was the “youthful desire to overpower his rivals”.
And thus ends a “World of Warcraft” career after 8 years in prison.
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