League of Legends is the most popular multiplayer game in the world, with that title, Riot Games has been under a lot of pressure to keep their servers in check, their players secure and their game running without bugs or hacks.
It appears that they have failed in all three cases, after hacker Shane “Jason” Duffy revealed he was making $1000 per day on the misery of League of Legends players, who he hacked in and out of the game.
Duffy was capable of achieving this amount of money through a Riot Games employee, who did not change his password when Duffy hacked in the first time. Through this portal, Duffy had access to everything the employee did, including player’s accounts.
The hacker managed to grab 24.5 million accounts in the time, before his house was raided and $110,000 Bitcoins seized. Duffy was making money from user’s skins and drop-hacking games, all for a large price.
Some skins on accounts can be worth hundreds of dollars on websites, Duffy was able to supply these skin shops with codes. Riot has recently implemented features, making these skin shops irrelevant, after several reports of scamming.
The drop-hacking allowed one player to get an advantage in the game, while all other players were unable to play. In the ranked system, this could mean players would be able to get through promotional games, without even trying.
Gaming black markets are becoming all the more reason for employees and companies to make sure players are secure. Even the most tedious of tasks might require being seen to, in order to stop these black market trades between hackers and players.
League of Legends makes millions of skin sales and has a thriving eSports scene, but once players start to see hacking on a daily basis, it might push both competitive sponsorships and paying customers away from the MOBA.
