Online games, such as Fortnite, have exploded in popularity over the last year, with the title recently reporting 125 million downloads.
This popularity hasn’t gone unnoticed in the darker corners of the web and there have been rising concerns around the presence of hackers, with many players reporting that their accounts have been compromised.
One of the biggest reasons online gaming has become a target for cybercriminals is the fact that many online games rely on in-game purchases. The growing use of in-game currency and micro-transactions has attracted hackers seeking to hijack these payments.
Routes to exploit players also include creating fake promotions and items to trick users into buying and downloading malware.
Additionally, hackers would be looking to steal payment details from players who make these in-game purchases.
The proliferation of in-game purchases and micro-currencies has also provided a platform that criminals can manipulate to launder the spoils of previous criminal activities.
Earlier this year, nearly 50,000 Minecraft accounts were found to be infected with malware distributed by modified character ‘skins’ which players downloaded from the official site. The malware was uploaded to the game’s official website without detection.
It is also crucial to recognise that these malware strains may be the beginning of more harmful projects. The infamous Mirai botnet that brought down the internet in 2016 originated on Minecraft.
Programmers or hackers also play a lot of online poker. The one thing about Poker is that you have to develop a skill to be able to “read” the other player.This is the same set of skills that are going to help a hacker in the field.
These are only two games in a long line of video games that influence hackers in their everyday activities. Just like movies or TV can be an inspiration, video games can be as well. Depending on the person, there is a whole host of things that can help the person achieve their goals. But no matter how much you play these games, you are still going to have to work at the basics.
“Many popular gaming server owners also collect money from players by selling various user privileges, such as protection against banning, access to all weapons and game accessories, etc”, according to a report from specialists in network security and ethical hacking. “Some server owners are advertised independently, while others purchase server promotion services from contractors”, the experts added.
During a routine inspection, a malicious server was discovered, managed by a user nicknamed “Belonard”, who employs illegitimate advertising and piercing methods to infect players’ computers with a Trojan that exploited a zero-day vulnerability In Counter Strike, aiming to take control of their access credentials and create their own botnet, experts said.
This Trojan, according to the network security specialists, exploits a remote code execution vulnerability to load one of the malicious libraries into the victim’s device. In the last stage of the attack, the investigators were able to neutralize the Trojan and stop the growth of the botnet.
The malware was initially intended to simply create an advantage for the hackers within the game, but it went on to cause damage across the web. This should be taken as a clear warning to clamp down on malware in online gaming, no matter how simplistic it may appear, and to prevent online games from being used as training grounds for future hackers that may later try their hand at attacks against enterprises and government organizations.