Two members of an international hacking ring pleaded guilty Tuesday for their roles in stealing $100 million worth of intellectual property and other data from the U.S. Army, Microsoft and several other technology companies, and two other people also have been indicted, the Department of Justice said.
“The members of this international hacking ring stole trade secret data used in high-tech American products, ranging from software that trains U.S. soldiers to fly Apache helicopters to Xbox games that entertain millions around the world,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Leslie R. Caldwell said in a statement.
The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, says the defendants gained unauthorized access to networks belonging to the Army, Microsoft Corp., Epic Games Inc., Valve Corp. and Zombie Studios from January 2011 to March 2014 and conspired to use and sell information they stole.
It accuses them of taking information related to Microsoft’s Xbox Live and then-unreleased Xbox One; software that Zombie Studios developed for the Army that simulates flying Apache helicopters; pre-release versions of the Epic video game “Gears of War 3” and the Activision video game “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3”; employee login information and other data from Valve; and more than $5,000 worth of “confidential data” from the Army.
Full article: Hackers admit stealing data worth millions from Army, Microsoft, more (LA Times)
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