North Korea employing MMO hackers

$6 million made in gold farming scheme over two years.

North Korea has employed hackers to attack popular South Korean online gaming portals in order to make money, according to a New York Times report.

Authorities in South Korea have claimed roughly 30 hackers based in China have been breaching online game servers for games such as the popular MMO lineage, and have set up bots to accumulate items in the game. Items were then reportedly sold to players for $6 million over a two year period.

According to Chung Kil-Hwan, a senior officer at South Korea's International Crime Investigation Unit, the hackers report "to a shadowy Community Party agency called Office 39, which gathers foreign hard currency for Mr. Kim [Jong-Il] through drug trafficking, counterfeiting, arms sales, and other illicit activities".

China has been rife with gold farming operations, with an estimated 80 per cent of all farming taking place in that country alone. Recently it was reported that 300 prisoners were forced to take part in a gold farming scheme operated by prison bosses in China.