The program, Runescape Gold Hack, promised to give the gamer free virtual currency to use in the game - but it in fact was being used to steal log-in details from unsuspecting users.

"When the researchers looked at the source code we found interesting information," explained Mr Ben-Itzhak to the BBC.

"We found that the malware was trying to steal the data from people and send it to a specific email address.

"The malware author included in that code the exact email address and password and additional information - more experienced hackers would never put these type of details in malware."

That email address belonged, Mr Ben-Itzhak said, to an 11-year-old boy in Canada.

Yeah, unless the email address was put there by someone else that had compromised the login info for this 11 year old boy's email.