What do you get for distributing a Trojan horse posing as a patch for the game Call of Duty? Apparently not much. Lewys Martin, 20, of Deal in Kent, England, used the malware to harvest bank login credentials, credit card details and internet passwords from the compromised Windows PCs of his victims. His reward for such was a mere $5 or less for every credential. The funds were deposited into a bank in Costa Rica were the UK cannot touch them.

What got him caught? Martin was arrested when, in a drunken state, he tried to break into a local college to steal computer equipment. When the police searched his home, they uncovered printouts of stolen cred card numbers and papers relating to a fraudulent bank loan.

Sentencing was deferred from November to allow the thief to finish a computer class. However, his bail was revoked when he and a few of his friends tried to burgle another college. He and his friends caused thousands of dollar’s worth of damage, according to local reports.

So what was the sentence he received for the three burglaries and the fraud charges? He was jailed for 18 months.

Gamers are a popular target for malware distributors. Much of this malign activity is directed at gamers in the Far East but Western shoot-em-up and role-playing fans are also at risk and ought to be wary of malware posing as gaming cracks and other common tricks, as explained in a blog post by Sophos here.