For several years, on his website, a native of Yekaterinburg, Andrei Kirsanov, according to police, managed to sell thousands of packages with bots and cheat programs that allowed users to receive unfair advantages over other players. The damage caused to the creators of games is estimated at 670 million rubles ($9 million).
A Moscow court has begun considering a criminal case against Yekaterinburg resident Andrey Kirsanov, accused of creating, using and distributing malicious computer programs.
It should be noted that before that no one was brought to criminal responsibility just for the interference in the gaming computer industry.
The defendant in the case was the Belarusian company Wargaming, a publisher and developer of computer games, including the popular online tank and naval action World of Tanks and World of Warships.
In them, players take control of military equipment - tanks and ships - and participate in online battles. For winning such battles, they receive in-game currency and experience points, which allow them to develop and discover new, more powerful equipment.
According to the company's representatives, since the release of the games, a large number of malicious programs have been created for them that allow users to gain unfair advantages over other players — bots and cheats. According to Wargaming, some users lose interest in the game, including due to the fact that rivals use such malware. Representatives of the company said that only last year more than 10 thousand bots were excluded from the game in World of Tanks.
As the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia have established, since 2015, hackers sold bots and cheat programs for playing World of Tanks and World of Warships through the Cyber Tank and Cyber Ship websites.
