Man sentenced to prison over 2010 World of Warcraft DDoS attack

A federal court has sentenced Calin Mateias to a year in federal prison over a distributed denial-of-service attack he launched against World of Warcraft servers in 2010.

Mateias, a Romanian citizen, was extradited to the United States over the accusation last year. NBC Los Angeles reports that he pled guilty to one count of causing intentional damage to a protected computer in February while prosecutors recommended a 10-month prison sentence.

On top of spending the past six months imprisoned, Mateias has also paid a sum of $29,987 in restitution to Blizzard to make up the costs the developer said it accrued as a direct result of the 2010 attack.

"Angered by a player he regularly competed against, the defendant determined to defeat his WoW opponents by interrupting the game's server so they could not access the game," argued Mateias’ defense during the sentencing. "His actions were motivated by a juvenile desire to win the game, and for others to lose it.”

The 2010 attack targeted the European World of Warcraft servers and blocked thousands of players in the affected area from logging into the online game. 

Additionally, the BBC reports that Mateias was facing charges over his alleged involvement in an effort to hack the California-based company Ingram Micro, but those charges have been dropped following his sentencing in the DDoS case.