Game industry - an attractive target for cyber criminals

The gaming industry is generally achieving rapid growth in both scale and influence as well as growing market value over the years. But the unseen booming growth makes the billion-dollar industry 'getting' more attention from cyber criminals.

According to the new report of the content distribution and cloud computing service provider Akamai, hackers are inclined to use unprecedented, unprecedented methods to penetrate the game market and hide. Avoid the detection of security teams. More worrisome is that many businesses, organizations, or even individuals operating in the gaming industry have not anticipated the complexity of the problem and proved too passive in many situations.

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Game industry - an attractive target for cyber criminals Picture 1

Specifically, new security reports (Company's 2019 Web Gambling and Gambling Abuse Web Sites) recently published at the annual Akamai Edge World event, revealed that hackers all over the world have done more. 12 billion attacks on game sites from the end of 2017 until March this year. In particular, the gaming community is one of the most 'favorite' targets for hackers. The main reason is not surprising, the gaming community itself is one of the most lucrative goals for cyber criminals.

However, new gambling sites are the factor that has suffered the most attacks, mainly related to the theft of identity information as well as the participants' personal data.

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"One reason we believe that the gaming industry is increasingly becoming an attractive target for hackers is that cyber criminals can easily, steal, sell or trade items and objects. In-game products to earn nefarious profits In addition, gamers are often those who are very willing to pay in the virtual world, so their financial status is also an attractive target for crooks . Martin McKeay, a security researcher at Akamai's team, editorial director of the report, said.

Besides, Akamai's report also points out that SQL injection attacks (SQL injection) account for about two-thirds of all Web-based attacks, while tons of attacks exploiting Local File Inclusion vulnerability (LFI) only accounts for about 1/4.

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Game industry - an attractive target for cyber criminals Picture 2 Hackers are increasingly interested in the game industry

The report also shows that most of the data hackers take advantage of to deploy online attacks are gathered from the famous large-scale data breaches that took place earlier, and many Among them are derived from SQL injection attacks.

In related information, Akamai's recent press release said its researchers discovered a video explaining to users how to perform SQLi attacks against websites, and use login information to create lists that can be used to 'stuff' malicious data into many online games.

'Although game companies are constantly innovating and improving their defenses, they are not allowed to neglect in guiding and providing information to customers on how to protect themselves. body from malicious situations in online space. Many gamers are still very young, will remain active in the gaming world for a long time in the future, and if they have the best practices to protect their accounts against bad situations, the risk Being a victim of cybercrime in the 'online career' later will certainly be greatly reduced , "McKeay said.

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Akamai's report also showed that more than two-thirds of the application-level attacks are targeted at organizations based in the United States and Russia and Canada, and most of which are directed to online gambling.'Attackers view abuse of information as a low-risk attack but have a high potential for profitability, at least for now.'

Security researchers note that hackers tend to pay more attention to compromised accounts related to valid credit card information and other financial links. When these accounts are compromised, they will be used to purchase additional items, including those used in each game.

Game industry - an attractive target for cyber criminals Picture 3 There should be a more proactive approach in the security of the game market

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This form of attack contains many potentials to explode in the future. As with many other types of attacks, the most important thing is still that the user must know the amount of knowledge needed to protect himself before requesting help from the service provider or agency. function. As for organizations and businesses operating in the gaming industry, they should also take a more proactive approach to protecting the interests of customers and for their own survival.