I still remember when our kids were in their "Clash of Clans" phase, where it was all about building their defenses in that game on (ugh) my phone.
They wanted more of the game's digital currency and came to me with a great deal from a guy who was selling "gems" needed to rapidly grow their building power within the game.
I wondered, how is this seller able to offer these gems at a discount?
Thanks to some recent work by security researchers, I now have an idea. There's a good chance they were buying gems to resell with someone's hacked credit card information.
Graham Cluley covered the story today:
The security researchers realized that they were dealing with a carder gang who had created a sophisticated automated mechanism for creating fake Apple ID accounts with stolen card information and buying virtual “gold”, “gems”, and other in-game power-ups within games.
These virtual goodies would then be sold to other game players on third-party markets....
