“Without prejudice to the integrity of any ongoing legal process, suffice it to say that the company has never engaged in any illegal activity as we are a homegrown Malaysian company with hundreds of employees and millions of customers worldwide.”
The company assured customers it could take “significant steps to administer claims.”
The Justice Department charged Wong, 46, and Ling, 32, with 23 counts of extortion, conspiracy, identity theft, aggravated identity theft, access device fraud, money laundering, violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and illegal domain name registration.
According to the corporate’s website, Wong is the founder and chief executive of SEA Gamer Mall, based in Sitiawan, Perak, while Ling is listed as partner and chief product officer.
“First, as part of the mainstream APT-41 computer hacking, the Chinese defendants targeted more than 100 victims worldwide across a variety of industries and sectors that are unfortunately on the standard target list of Chinese hackers,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Rosen said in an announcement.
“These crimes were amplified by a sophisticated technique known as a ‘supply chain attack,’ in which Chinese hackers breached software vendors around the world and modified the vendors’ code to install back doors, enabling further hacks against the vendors’ ‘customers,’” he said.
“Second, as an additional method of making money, several Chinese defendants breached the networks of global video game companies (a billion-dollar industry) and defrauded them of in-game assets,” the statement reads. “Two Chinese defendants, along with two Malaysian defendants, are accused of selling these assets on the black market through their illegal website.”
At this point, it’s unclear what in-game resources are, as they might be in-game currency used to buy virtual goods akin to clothing and even video game artwork.
Gaming analytics firm Newzoo reported that 20.1 million gamers in Malaysia spent $673 million on games in 2019, making it one among the most important gaming markets in Southeast Asia. Most players spent money on in-game items or virtual goods, with essentially the most common being power-ups or additional abilities for the sport’s avatar.
SEA Gamer Mall was established in 2007 and has offices in China, Thailand and Indonesia.
On its website, the corporate said it had 1.9 million registered users, and in a 2017 news article, Wong stated that nearly all of the positioning’s sales got here from the sale of prepaid reload cards and virtual items from online games.
A U.S. Department of Justice report said Wong and Ling were arrested on September 14 through cooperation with local law enforcement and now face extradition proceedings.
Read the unique article at Star.
