Man Extradited To US After DDOSing World of Warcraft Servers
Calin Mateias, a Romanian national, has been extradited to the US for DDOSing Blizzard’s servers between February and September in 2010. A DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack sends massive amounts of data to a server or collection of servers, in an attempt to overwhelm it and cause it to malfunction or shut down. Mateias’ attack resulted in thousands of paying users being unable to log into the game.
Mateias was extradited to Los Angeles to face the charges, and plead guilty in February to one count of causing damage to a protected computer. He was also ordered to pay $29,987 in damages, that Blizzard accrued trying to deal with the issue.
“Mateias, using his in-game avatar, often participated in collaborative events, such as ‘raids’ where players joined forces to meet game objectives and were rewarded with virtual proceeds or in-game advantages,” the Department of Justice said in a press release. “[He] became involved in disputes with other players for a variety of reasons, including the division of loot and membership in raid teams.”
Prosecutors dropped the case when Mateias plead guilty to the charge, and he now faces one year in prison.
