Recently, Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare fans have seen an upsurge of accounts being hacked and stolen. At first, the hacked accounts were simply gone with fans losing tons of effort, time, and account information in the process. Warzone's fans now have a chance to regain access to their accounts, but it comes with a rather hefty price.
Warzone is one of the biggest games of the year, with its developers seeing massive success in its free to play model. After rotating tons of premium items throughout the title, players have invested real money into their accounts. With the pandemic, this number rises into hundreds of dollars as Warzone fans invest in the Battle Pass and bundled items.
Each stolen account, therefore, becomes worth a large sum, as the hackers seem to know. According to Motherboard, hackers are now demanding ransom payment via Bitcoin in return for the stolen accounts. The hackers are offering players accounts for a bitcoin transaction of $400 paid through a specific link. Motherboard goes to report that the address in question has received 1.2 BTC so far estimating around $12,000 in payment. Although it is unknown if these are Warzone players paying for their accounts, the transactions seem to be anywhere from $20 to $2,600 in value.
It is still unclear how the accounts were compromised in the first place. Some fans are guessing that the breach came from leaked passwords through other sites resulting in problems for players who use the same password across multiple accounts.
Motherboard goes to report that Activision has been "slow or unresponsive" when it comes to reclaiming lost accounts. It is important to remember that Activision has reported over 75 million players within the first five months of Warzone's release. This gamer population helped drive up the company's $500 million quarterly improvements with an increase in in-game spending throughout the year.
In the report, Motherboard describes a "thriving underground economy" for stolen accounts. This economy fuels the buying, trading, and selling of compromised accounts putting a dangerous alternative forward for fans accounts for those who do not give in to the demands of the hackers. In this market, accounts can go for thousands of dollars based on the cosmetics attached.
Losing control of an Activision account can mean losing hundreds of dollars for fans. All progress, cosmetics, and valued items are attached to the player account, and with limited time skins available each account can become extremely valuable to other players.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: Motherboard