Romanian who attacked Warcraft gets year in prison

A Romanian man who launched a cyber attack on the California-based servers of the hugely popular online fantasy game World of Warcraft over a squabble with other players was sentenced on Monday to one year in prison.

Calin Mateias, 38, of Bucharest, was extradited to the United States to face felony charges over the 2010 attack that saw him flood World of Warcraft servers with a massive amount of traffic and requests, thus making the game inaccessible for thousands of players.

"Angered by a player he regularly competed against, the defendant determined to defeat his WoW opponents by interrupting the game's server so they could not access the game," prosecutors said in court documents.

"His actions were motivated by a juvenile desire to win the game, and for others to lose it."

In February, Mateias pleaded guilty to one count of causing damage to a protected computer and last month paid $30,000 to Blizzard Entertainment, which created the role-playing game.

Following his plea, US authorities dropped charges against him in a separate hacking case in Pennsylvania.

© 2018 AFP