Children Writing Malware to Hack Gaming Websites

The young generation seems to be considerably into hacking gaming and social networking websites these days, experts say.

Authorities from the anti-virus company AVG found children writing malware to steal login details of online gamers.

The findings come as part of the efforts taken by the company to calculate the total number of malicious software developments across the world. Highlighting the risks associated with the trend among youngsters, the Community Powered Threat Report found an 11-year-old child from Canada who developed a Trojan to steal game information from others.

"We have now seen a number of examples of very young individuals writing malware, including an 11-year-old from Canada," Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Chief Technology Officer at AVG Technologies, said in a news release. "The code usually takes the form of a basic Trojan written using the .NET framework, which is easy to learn for beginners and simple to deploy via a link in an email or posted on a social media page."

The trend is concerning, as these online gaming accounts also often provide credit card details of the gamer, putting their accounts at high risks of theft. Experts from AVG also found many gamers using the same login details for their social networking accounts like Facebook and Twitter. This can pave the way for cyberbullying.

"We believe these junior programmers are motivated mainly by the thrill of outwitting their peers, rather than financial gain, but it is nevertheless a disturbing and increasing trend. It is also logical to assume that at least some of those responsible will be tempted to experiment with much more serious cyber-crimes," Ben-Itzhak said.

The investigators also found the malware written for gaming websites based on similar features like using Visual Basic and C#. They also noted the malware contained many errors, making it easy to track the origin of the code,  BBC reported.

"When the researchers looked at the source code we found interesting information. We found that the malware was trying to steal the data from people and send it to a specific email address," Ben-Itzhak told BBC. "The malware author included in that code the exact email address and password and additional information - more experienced hackers would never put these type of details in malware."

Concerned with the occurrence, the company urges to spread more awareness among youngsters about the hidden risks associated with the trend.