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| Spammers target online gamers |
| Kirtika Suneja / New Delhi Sep 17, 2009, 00:35 IST |
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With online games attracting gamers from across the globe, spammers have been trying to cash in on the popularity of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) videogames. Using phishing and Trojans, cyber criminals have been stealing players’ login names and passwords.
Analysts explain that by creating characters that send unsolicited ads for items such as extra weapons and playable characters, spammers target gamers in MMO games.
“In-game characters controlled by individuals working for spam companies infiltrate these virtual worlds and bombard players with unsolicited ads for the sale of in-game virtual items like swords and even playable characters. Since cyber criminals need large audiences to perpetrate their crimes, they have begun preying on residents in virtual worlds and players in online games, particularly in Asia where these games have become extremely popular,” explains Abhinav Karnwal, product marketing manager APEC, Trend Micro.
In many games, cyber criminals build up virtual assets that players can exchange or purchase in the real world. “Multi player games like car racing and boxing are the ones that you actually play on your computer but virtually with many players,” notes Rajiv Chadha, vice-president, VeriSign India. Some games disallow or restrict free trials, forcing spammers to pay for accounts that can be shut down.
“Usually this is about trying to get to other accounts using the same password, holding someone’s gaming account hostage for ransom, or transferring items purchased in one account to another account,” adds Shantanu Ghosh, VP, India product operations, Symantec.
Ghosh says that there have been cases of spam popping up inside of games via characters created by spammers, who then spam other users in the games they have infiltrated.
In 2008, Symantec observed web attacks from 808,000 unique domains, many of which are mainstream websites, including: News, travel, online retail, games, real estate, government and many others.
These programmes not only disturb the player but also have the ability of stealing players’ IP addresses.
As a precautionary measure, Karnwal informs that many games have a “report spam” button that allows players report spammers for investigation. Dynamic passwords or those that constantly change in a few seconds, is another way of safeguarding your gaming accounts.
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