Four members of an international hacking ring have been charged by the US for being responsible for the stealing of intellectual property and other data worth a whipping 200 million USD. The affected parties through this theft include Microsoft, Epic Games, Zombie Studios and even the US Army. The four men are Nathan Leroux (20) from Bowie, Maryland; Sanadodeh Nesheiwat (28) from Washington, New Jersey; David Pokora (22) of Mississauga, Ontario and Austin Alcala (18) from McCordsville, Indiana.
Among the four, Pokora and Nesheiwat have pleaded guilty to the charges of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and copyright infringement. Both of the hackers are slated for sentencing in January. The four are being held responsible for stealing software related to the Xbox One console, Xbox Live, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Gears of War 3.
The Xbox One’s source code, technical specifications and related information was grabbed by them by unethical means, and this hurt Microsoft a great deal since the console was yet to be released when the incident occurred. Another jolt to the company was that intellectual property and proprietary data related to Xbox Live was also compromised by the hackers.
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Zombie Studios had prepped up an Apache helicopter simulator software for the US Army which too was grabbed by in the attempt. A pre-released version of Epic’s Gears of War 3 was involved in the stash as well, apart from a pre-release version of Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
While these four persons have been charged for hacking in the US, Australian authorizes have charged one of their citizens in the same matter, says Joystiq.