BEIJING

THE craze in online games among Chinese netizens is fuelling an increasingly lucrative real-world market for computer hackers, security firms have said.

"There is a huge underground market and major revenue comes from selling game accounts or virtual items stolen from hijacked computers," said Mr Zhang Yumu, vice-president of Beijing Rising International Software, one of China's largest security firms.

A report by state broadcaster CCTV said Trojan-horse attacks, which allow hackers remote access to a targeted computer system, make up a market expected to be worth 10 billion yuan (S$2 billion) this year.

The report cited a hacker saying he could get hundreds of thousands of yuan every month by hacking into computers and stealing the users' personal information and game accounts.

The hacker would then log into a game account and transfer all valuable virtual items, such as weapons and clothes, for sale through online sites.

The hijacked computer's accounts are sold for other uses, such as joining online attacks and piling up false traffic data.

Trojan-horse attacks have became a major online threat in China in recent years, accounting for over 95 per cent of all online attacks.

Mr Zhang said: "The rise in attacks is in line with the rise of online games."

He noted that over 95 per cent of the revenue of the Trojan- horse attackers came from selling online game accounts and virtual items.

The number of Trojan-horse attacks in China surged 10 times last year and should be up 60 per cent this year.

Sales revenues in China's online game market grew 76 per cent last year to 18.3 billion yuan, going by official figures.

The number of online gamers in China grew 22 per cent to 49 million last year.

Tie Jun, an engineer from Kingsoft, one of China's largest security firms, said joint efforts by online gaming and security firms have slowed the growth of Trojan-horse attacks.