Massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, such as Blizzard's World of Warcraft, are being targeted by cyber criminals for financial gain.
This is according to Francisco Artes, VP of security, North America, of Deluxe Entertainment Services, who addressed the ITWeb Security Summit, in Midrand, this week.
There are two main ways in which gamers are illicitly profiting from MMOs: through illegal trading of accounts and identity theft, he explained.
Artes said cyber criminals are increasingly hacking into gamers' user accounts and stealing confidential information.
“The number of viruses and Trojans targeting users' accounts to gain information is climbing. Phishing is also on the increase, where cyber criminals pretend to be from the game company and send out an e-mail to the gamer asking to confirm user account details.”
Many online role-playing games, such as Ultima Online, World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online, are paid for by using monthly credit card-based subscriptions. There are underground markets where gamers illegally sell user accounts, high-level characters and virtual objects, such as magical swords and armour. Artes pointed out that this is against a game developer's terms of service. He noted that a high-level World of Warcraft character can be sold for as much as $1 000.
Growing business
Artes previously lectured and worked with the FBI around cyber criminality and hacking. He was also previously head of security for EA Games.
“While I was working at EA, we found a hacker broke into 120 game accounts through phishing, earning $12 000 a month. He changed the password and the credit card number so that the real account user had no way of proving it was their account.
“We're also seeing an increasing amount of stolen gaming accounts being sold on eBay. Once a hacker has access to a person's account information, they get their personal information and contact the people directly, blackmailing them.”
Duplication is another form of cyber crime. Artes explained that hackers duplicate virtual gold or rare items, and then sell these on the underground online market for real money. Other gamers purchase the gold or items, and use these to their advantage in the game.
Artes predicts online games are moving into an environment where real currencies will be legally exchanged.
He compared this to the online simulation game Second Life, where people experience a virtual world, and can communicate and trade with one another as if in the real world.
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