According to a Dutch report issued by newspaper NRC Handelsblad, and reported in English by tech news site IT Examiner, police in the Netherlands have arrested a 20 year old hacker for several hacking offenses, including breaking into Activision and Valve's servers - obtaining early code of
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and credit card information, respectively, from the companies.
More than a year ago, rumors surfaced that a hacker known as MaddoxX had hacked Valve and retrieved credit card data,
here reported on consumer site 1UP. At the time, Valve spokesman Doug Lombardi maintained that "There has been no security breach of [Valve's download service] Steam," there were credible reports of hacking activity backed up with seeming hard data, including screenshots of private financial information. Lombardi chalked it up to a potential breach of a third-party site affiliated with Valve's Cyber Café program.
According to the
new story on IT Examiner, the hacker responsible has been arrested. In addition to offenses against the two publishers, MaddoxX (whose real name is as yet unreported) also allegedly stole the credit card data for 50,000 customers from "an English tickets site".
The
story published by NRC reveals that the damages may total 13m euros, stemming from the perpetrator's fraudulent use of the card numbers to buy electronics and play online poker.
No statement has yet been issued by any of the affected companies.
