First of all in an ongoing case against some german bot makers it was revealed last month that they have sneakily acquired source code for one bot through questionable methods.
My problem with it is they are quite happy to ignore the law when it suits them then go crying to the courts when it doesn't

https://torrentfreak.com/blizzard-stole-our-source-code-bot-maker-says-151119/

I found a choice quote from the comments there. .
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More recently they have been mass deleting threads on the surrounding argument of a multiboxer that got his comeuppance by someone using a special item. He then goes crying to Blizzard straight after because he and his load of extra characters got ganked so the big baby spammed reports with all the accounts and the player that beat him is said to have been banned.

You can see it happen here. Pride before a fall comes to mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXAVmU54PSk

One of the deleted threads explaining the situation.
https://archive.is/agv5y

#Freedelby

The most disturbing thing of this is, that people are actually paying a lot for and playing this wack-a-mole and that skilled people are wasting their talents in making bots to do this mindless job.

Apart from that:
Did I understand this right, that you mean Blizzard hacked into a hackers computer to steal sourcecode?
Is the Battle.net using some kind of client that is a glorified intrusion tool or what?
I'm not into MMORPGs or Blizzard since Warcraft 3 anymore so may be a bit clueless here, but it sounds like it.

back in very old days (physical release of pc dragon age origins... if it grants you an idea), i was then testing a new promising IDS+firewall solution on my computer and when i first loaded wow under such settings, i of course had my firewall bleeping alert and asking confirmation for each incoming/outgoing connection (software was on "learning mode"), launched game through main ex and not launcher

i got one first outgoing connection to an ip adress i didnt know. for sake of the test, i blocked
then a second alert for a second unknown ip (unknown to me) i blocked to
then a third alert: ip was wow authentification server (no bnet account for wow at that time), i accepted connection
4th alert: connection with ip adress from main blizzard seed server for update, i let it do
5th alert: connection to the ip adress of my usual realm server: let it do

i could play the whole night, i had blocked two unknown ip adress connections, they seemed to be not required for the game to behave normally (i played without trouble)

i grew suspicious of blizzard on this very night

According to the article:
They made an offer to one of the hackers to sell them the code. Just that the guy they asked had no rights to sell it. He wasn't even an employee at that company and only did some freelance work for it.

The legality of bots depends a lot on the interpretation of copyright law and EULA's. The reason they've been held illegal in the US is based on the legal position that customers do not actually own their software but instead license it. Any breach of the EULA voids their license to use the software, meaning they are committing copyright infringement by using the product. Thus, any tool whose primary purpose is assisting in the breaking of a EULA is inducing copyright infringement. If you follow the logic there, the implications are quite frightening; at least in theory EULA violations could be exploited to launch RIAA-style copyright lawsuit claims. It wouldn't be hard to imagine a different court in a different jurisdiction ruling otherwise, which would scuttle Blizzard's legal position and render bots perfectly legal.

I'm not familiar with German copyright case law, but it may well be that making this bot software is in the legal clear over there. The fact that Blizzard isn't suing them seems indicative that at very least they don't see it as a legal a slam-dunk. On the other hand, what Blizzard allegedly did (corporate espionage) is unambiguously illegal.

I'm subbed in WOW but I don't know how this affects me. So far this appears to affect the PVP community more then me.

And is this happening to all players on all servers?

Someone with 60 or 80 accounts controlling them at once can be a bit of bother on a PVE realm too but that's not what the fuss is over.
It's because not only does blizzard have rubbish banning systems that let him use 60 or 80 accounts to report the player at once and get him banned it's also their attempt to cover up their shitty systems.

There's more info on how the banned player beat the bigbaby and his many accounts. Blizzard have been trying unsuccessfully to sue the german company for bots which from what I understand play like normal players so they don't have to grind all day. I guess blizzard wants them banned because it makes people less likely to become addicted to the game.
The recent case is bribing or coercing a person doing work for the german company to hand over the source code.

You might be thinking of warden when talking about intrusion as when people could see what it was doing it was looking at all your open windows and sending the data to them.

So corporate espionage it is indeed, lovely.
I hope Blizzard burns for it, but not much will happen, I guess.

Isn't this also an issue on many account based online games that gives players the option to Report/Ban system?

Or any acount based website? Wishing to burn away peoples jobs because of few higher ups did bad things.

You wish for the Art Department and Music Department of Blizzard to burn for this aswell?

Their talents are better used elsewhere. Under own or better management for example.

I have no love left for my formerly favourite game studio Silicon Synapse / Blizzard.

Completely off-topic but the thread title made me think of this:
Have you ever asked your bitch for other bitches?

While I don't approve of cheaters, I do feel using copyright is the wrong way to take care of them. The battle between Blizzard and the bot maker is like watching Beavis and Butt-head fight.

True.

It's not the same Blizzard that made the The Lost Vikings, original Starcraft and Warcraft 1 and 2 anymore.
EDIT: typo

blisard is doing nothing more than exploit people stupidity, so it's not their fault per se. The fault and the root of the problem is people being stupid.