A total of four people involved in an incredible plot to hack into multiple companies and steal intellectual property face various charges, including copyright infringement, identity theft and theft of trade secrets, infiltrating various video game companies and attempting to sell counterfeit Xbox One development kits prior to the console's launch last year.
According to the Kotaku report:
The various hacking schemes stretched back to January 2011, according to the [Department of Justice], and involve everything from the theft of the game Gears of War 3 nearly a year before its official release to the allegedly successful effort to sell a counterfeit pre-release Xbox One development kit on eBay for $5,000.
Canadian David Polora and America Sanadodeh Nesheiwat are considered to have been working with Australian hacker SuperDaE. The report gets more interesting when we reach to the part covering Microsoft's Xbox One developer kits.
It's alleged the two hackers conspired with two thieves to obtain Xbox One development kits from a secure building on Microsoft's Redmond campus. The indictment states that, "using stolen access credentials to a Microsoft building [the two alleged thieves] entered the building and stole three non-public versions of the Xbox One console." The group then attempted to sell counterfeit pre-release kits on eBay.
The Department of Justice claims the US "has seized over $620,000 in cash and other proceeds related to the charged conduct" of said parties involved, while total damages range between $100-200 million. The two hackers, Polora and Nesheiwat, pleaded guilty and face up to five years in prison with potential fines of at least $250,000.
Be sure to read through the Kotaku report for more details.
Source: Kotaku
