Online Games a 'Playground' For Organized Crime 73
New submitter cadenceaniya sends this excerpt from Polygon:
"Online games are a 'playground' for organized crime and cyber criminals, JD Sherry, vice president of technology and solutions at Trend Micro said following the news that League of Legends accounts were compromised. Earlier this week, account information — usernames, email addresses, salted password hashes, and some first and last names — for some North American League of Legends players were 'compromised' by hackers. Riot was also 'investigating that approximately 120,000 transaction records from 2011 that contained hashed and salted credit card numbers have been accessed.' The increase of free-to-play online gaming across all platforms over the years 'have opened the doors to micro-transactions in-game.' The simple and functional systems created so players can spend money effortlessly creates 'playgrounds' for cyber criminals take advantage of. 'Game platforms can have millions of users all storing sensitive information or code access for more features,' Sherry said. 'These are highly sought after in the cyber-crime underground for trading and selling in the black market. These platforms can fall victim to cyber-attacks just like any organization, especially if they have vulnerabilities that go unpatched.'"
I'm shocked!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
VP of online security firm warns people the internet isn't safe.
What's next? Glock's VP says streets aren't safe?
Re:Way to sensationalize (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. And it's more about accounts than it is about games (though of course most MMOs have issues with this).
If you have a Steam account these days and you aren't using the Steamguard added security, you're mad. The trade in compromised Steam accounts is quite terrifying (and unsurprising given the value of the games stored on many of them). The same is true for PSN accounts. It's even more true for XBox Live accounts where there are fewer additional layers of password security you can bolt on (unless they've added them since I last checked) and where there are FIFA Soccer DLC packs that are tradable and essentially allow "real money" to be laundered through the accounts.
Re:Way to sensationalize (Score:4, Insightful)
Trend Micro saying "Online Games a 'Playground' For Organized Crime" is like ADT saying "Private Homes a 'Playground' For Organized Crime".
Re:I'm shocked!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Cars kill 30,000 people a year too. We don't need more cars, or people with them.
And there are fewer cars in the US than there are guns. That means more deaths per car than per gun.
It's true.