In the world of organized crime, nothing is exempt as long as it will further their schemes. In line with this thinking, Symantec warned authorities with the possibility of criminals using online games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life for money laundering purposes. That's another form of online crime apart from piracy.

The two online games' use of microtransaction business models in exchanging virtual items for money makes it possible for organized criminals to "open several thousand MMOG accounts. Each could be used to trade with other players in the purchase or sale of in-game assets, the funds from which would ultimately be withdrawn from the accounts," according to the Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec.

With those myriad of accounts going through millions of transactions, tracing the true source of the accounts will ultimately become near-impossible.

Aside from money laundering, several online games are also being used to spread malicious software in the guise of downloadable updates. Unfortunately, some gamers often disable their security systems in their computers to optimize performance while playing, leaving them open for infections or attacks.

China is most affected by MMOG software attacks, with about 74 percent of the attacks directed towards the country. About 84 percent of Gampass attacks, one of the most malicious trojan codes, originated from China as well.

While there's not much you can do to make sure you account will stay away from money laundering, you can protect your computer from getting infected by making sure your anti-virus and firewalls stay on while you're playing.

Yes, this is yet another news regarding the growingly rampant WoW accounts hacking. And unfortunately, you guys just might have to be paranoid a little bit more.

Roger Thompson, CTO of Exploit Prevention Labs, warns that the gangs are still "incredibly active, and it's a good exploit." By now, you should know the hackers' MO already. But if not, it's never too late to find out. Basically, these hackers infect those sites that WoW players usually visit with keylogging software. Now, the sites need not be WoW-related, but is frequented by avid gamers. With the software installed in the computers, the hackers are then able to spy on keystrokes, and ultimately, to steal WoW accounts from unsuspecting players.

As to why WoW accounts are the ones targeted, "The guys working out how to do it are WoW players. We're pretty sure we know who (most of them) are: a couple of Chinese college students, and it turns out they're interested in WoW." They also suspect a Russian gang to be in on it as well.

For their part, Blizzard has already addressed the problem by giving a shout out to the gamers via their official website. "[An] important means of protecting your account information is keeping your system up-to-date. For instance, installing the latest Windows security patch is a good way to avoid exploits designed to steal your login and password details."

The thing is, it's most likely that this pilferage of WoW accounts will remain in the community because the players themselves do tend to be lax regarding their software security. Apart from this is the fact that there is an existing market out there for the stolen goods. Says Symantec's senior manager for the security response team, "People are willing to buy on the black market. If players themselves were not willing to go outside the games to improve their characters, then there wouldn't be such a need."

So at the end of the day, this security problem is still -- er -- a problem. While there still are no clear-cut mechanisms on how the WoW community can actually police these hackers, as well as a well-founded check and balance mechanism to avert these kinds of incidents, each player would just have to be extra vigilant that these folks with malicious intents on your accounts don't tread on yours.

"The moral of the story is that if you patch, you're safe," concludes Thompson. "If not, be afraid, be very afraid. Complacency is the enemy."

You remember that security advisory both issued by Microsoft and the World of Warcraft about Windows' vulnerability? Hackers are apparently taking advantage of how Windows handles moving cursors and are now targeting WoW account information.

Microsoft released a patch to counter the problem that surfaced late last month. Investigators have discovered that hackers can insert their malicious codes via a number of ways. They can create a dummy site (for phishing), have other sites host the code, or hack into sites and insert the codes into it (preferrably a popular one). It was reported that a Chinese hacking group cashed in on the animated cursor flaw by hacking into the Superbowl site and inserted the spyware there.

The analysts learned that the hackers are focusing their attention toward World of Warcraft account information - which is now surprisingly more expensive than credit card information. According to Symantec, a credit card can be bought at US$ 6 while WoW account info rings in at US$ 10. When you consider rare items and gold sales, it could go up some more. Much more.

The patch to remedy the flaw was released last April 3. Be sure to run automatic updates or download the patch manually. You can't be too careful.