While very rare for the average person, the number of cyberattacks carried out on online gaming platforms is on the rise. Over the last few years, there’s said to have been a 300% rise in the number of DDoS attacks carried out against online multiplayer services.
It makes sense. Hackers love ruining people’s fun, and game companies are loaded with cash and data. Now, we’ll be honest – as a gamer, most cyberattacks are not your concern. It’s good to be aware of them, as they present a danger to you, but there’s little you can do about them, and the chances of you being targeted are minimal. You just need to hope that the targeted game company has beefy security, or at least does something to keep you aware of what is happening.
On this page, we want to tackle the various types of cyberattacks that online gamers need to deal with. These are both ones that you can handle yourself (and, hopefully, avoid) and those that you should be aware of, even if there is nothing you can do about it yourself – i.e. to protect yourself a little.
This is really a collection of tips to help you avoid the worst cyberattacks, while also being able to recognize what they are.
DDoS attacks
This is, by far, one of the most common cyberattacks carried out against online multiplayer games. As we said, the number of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks is on the rise. It isn’t really something that you can handle yourself, and some of the biggest companies spend millions attempting to protect themselves from them, and some still fail.
We don’t want to get too technical on what a DDoS is. All you need to know is that servers (not just game servers) can only handle a certain number of connections at a time. With a DDoS attack, people will send a load of traffic to a server all at once. Their goal is to overload it, causing a crash. Many won’t cease their attacks unless they are paid off. Some just want to show that they can do it. All the big gaming companies have been victims of DDoS attacks at least once.
It is pretty tough for you to know whether a company is dealing with a DDoS cyberattack unless they tell you. Warning signs might include server lag, random disconnections, failure to connect to servers etc. For the most part, there shouldn’t be a huge risk to the player, outside of annoyance. This is assuming that the game server’s owner has taken steps to protect player data. We just recommend that you don’t connect if you think a DDoS is in progress.
Social engineering
When you’re gaming online, you don’t need to worry that much about being personally impacted by a cyberattack that you can control. In actual fact, one of the biggest threats isn’t hacking – it’s usually social engineering. This is when scammers trick players into sharing personal details or clicking malicious links. It often starts with a friendly message, an email, or even a fake customer support enquiry. In online casinos, social engineering scams may involve someone posing as casino staff, offering exclusive bonuses or requesting verification details. You’ve probably been targeted before like this elsewhere online – it is unfortunately quite common across the web. Like with other industries, never share your login credentials or payment information with anyone. For example if you are looking for a new Sweepstakes casino to try, DingDingDing has very impressive security features, it’s always important to consult review websites such as WSN to ensure you have a safe experience.
Hacking – avoiding it
Hacking can take many forms in online gaming. However, the most common form of hacking in online gaming comes from tricking people to download mods and hacks for their games. Let’s be honest, most people will want to get the upper edge in games that they play.
However, under absolutely no circumstances should you be downloading anything that allows you to cheat in online games, or anything that claims it is ‘special software’ or something similar for the game. For starters, it is morally wrong to cheat in online games. Play fair. Secondly, most of these pieces of software are laden with viruses, keyloggers and spyware. So, there is a huge risk of being the victim of a cyberattack, plus you’ll probably end up being banned from the game on the off-chance there is some sort of cheat buried in there.
Stay safe and play fair with online games.
Data breaches
Again, this is not something that you can avoid. Data breaches are the responsibility of the game server owner. You can still protect yourself to a degree, though.
Chances are that the first you’ll ever hear of a data breach is if a company announces data has been breached. They’ll even let you know what information has potentially been stolen.
When this happens:
– Change your passwords.
– Keep an eye on your bank account (although, it is rare that payment information is stolen).
Unfortunately, data breaches are all too common in the online gaming world. Even big companies, such as Sony, have fallen prey to this. There’s nothing you can do to prevent it, just protect your data if your details have been leaked.
Final thoughts
As a gamer, there’s not much you can do to avoid cyberattacks, bar protecting your data. Just keep your wits about you when online, and if a company says they’ve been the victim of a cyberattack, listen to any advice they give and act on it. It’ll certainly help.