Hacker arrested by stealing the source code of popular game and giving about 26 billion yen loss

ByBrian Klug

From the Valve which runs steam of the PC game download sales platform, the game before releaseHalf-Life 2"The source code was stolen and leaked to the Internet happened in 2004. Axel Gembe, the author of the attack tool used in this case and arrested in 2008, has revealed the history of the case in response to the interview by Ars Technica.

Catching up with the guy who stole Half-Life 2's source code, 10 years later | Ars Technica
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/06/what-drove-one-half-life-2-super-fan-to-hack-into-valves-servers/

Half-Life 2 Axel Gembe, a German hacker, was arrested as the author of the spill incident attack tool. Gembe, who is a large gamer and looking forward to the launch of Half - Life 2, infects malware with PCs because it opened a suspicious mail one day, but from the interest point of view, malware I reverse engineered the program and analyzed the mechanism of malware.

ByDuncan c

While conducting research on malware, we succeed in contacting with the author of malware, but Gembe decided to notice how to create the malware without reporting the author. Gembe who gained knowledge about malware from such circumstances creates malware by himself and thinks to use it to steal the product key of the game which could not be purchased by oneself.

"At that time I did not have enough money to buy games," Gambe told Valve's server to get some information on the game "Half-Life 2", which was postponed a major deferred release Invade and search for a server saving Half-Life 2 data. In a few weeks of survey, I found materials related to Half-Life 2 design documents and settings. Despite intruding the server for several weeks, Valve did not show Gambe's existence, so Gambe further investigated and finally the source code of Half-Life 2 was saved I found a server.

The joy that I got the game I wanted sincerely before anyone else in the world is tremendous, it was very difficult to suppress in myself. Gambe, who was driven by the urge to share secrets to someone, decided to hand over the source code to one user, but this caused the source code to diffuse on the Internet. Although he did not intend to spread the source code by himself, Gambe who promised the other party to "make it absolutely secret" said "If it is published on the Internet even once, I can not absolutely stop it" The street, source code of Half - Life 2 came to many people before release.

ByDennis Skley

After the source code has been spread, Mr. Gambe anonymously sends an apology e-mail to Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve, "I am the boss who stole the source code of Half-Life 2". Mr. Newell who received this confirmed that the sender of the mail is the culprit because the information contained in the e-mail contained information that only the criminal knew about. Mr. Gambe, who apologized to Valve by e-mail, "It is not my intention to publish on the Internet," Mr. Newell asked Mr. Newell whether he was not interested in hiring himself by e-mail. Mr. Newell replied "I'd like to interview by phone" and actually did a telephone interview, but this was the trap that FBI set in, and Gambe's identity was grieved by the FBI.

After that, Mr. Gambe who was arrested by German local police and suffering from guilt consciousness will talk to the police without covering everything. Mr. Gambe was admitted for two years' protection oversight, being honest and talking about the fact that there is room for lack of circumstance to lose something that the source code was published on the Internet.

Approximately ten years after the incident, as of 2016, Mr. Gambe acknowledged the seriousness of what he did, "I did something that I should not really do, causing problems with Valve, resulting in economic losses I really regret my actions I regret.I regret about all illegal acts I committed.If there is a chance to speak with Gabe Newell "I am sorry really, you are my favorite game I am a developer and I'd like to tell you that I will purchase your game at any time. " It is believed that Valve suffered a loss of 250 million dollars (about 26 billion yen) as the source code was stolen.