Bluehole Arrests 15 PUBG Hackers

When Bluehole, the folks behind PUBG, said they were going to be tougher on cheaters, hackers, and bot-users, they sure as heck weren’t kidding, because it was just announced over on Steam that the company just had 15 people arrested (yes, proper arrested) for their role in the creation and distribution of hacks for their famous battle royale game.

You might think that being arrested is a pretty big step if all you’re doing is cheating in a game, but that’s not really what these folks are guilty for; rather, they were found to be using the PUBG to spread malware that could scan people’s computers and steal their private information, such as usernames, passwords, and financial information.

"15 major suspects including “OMG”, “FL”, “火狐”, “须弥” and “炎黄” were arrested for developing hack programs, hosting marketplaces for hack programs, and brokering transactions. Currently the suspects have been fined approximately 30mil RNB ($5.1mil USD). Other suspects related to this case are still being investigated.

Some hack programs that are being distributed through the internet includes a Huigezi Trojan horse*(Chinese backdoor) virus. It was proven that hack developers used this virus to control users’ PC, scan their data, and extract information illegally.”

Now, we can all agree cheating on PUBG is bad, but actually using it to spread malware? Even worse. So I’m pretty darn glad to see that this wound up happening. The only bad news, as far as I can tell, is that all 15 people were Chinese. And considering that community’s known hostility towards the Chinese, this will definitely not make things any better. That said, hackers gotta get caught, so in the end it was more than worth it.

So now all you PUBG players have to worry about is your inferiority complex.