The hacking of online game accounts is fairly common, with bots, scripts, viruses and trojans all being developed to steal other players’ details, typically to convert that players in-game items into real-world cash through sites that trade in virtual items. A story coming out of Korea today points to indications that the IDs of more than 53,000 Koreans have been used to sign up for Lineage and Lineage 2 accounts:

Hackers last year stole the personal details of up to 53,000 Koreans to sign up for the hugely popular online game “Lineage” at the victims’ expense. A similar security breach that became public on Tuesday is sending shockwaves through cyberspace.

The police’s Cyber Terror Response Center says it unmasked Chinese hackers trying to create “Lineage” game accounts by using the stolen resident registration numbers of 53,000 Koreans last September, apparently with the aim to sell so-called “items” that increase player’s strength in the game, which could have fetched W100 billion from enthusiasts.

The two Lineage games from NCSoft are among the most popular games in Korea, with estimates of between 1 and 2 million registered players.