A recent study released by Microsoft has confirmed what many gamers have suspected for sometime - online gamers are increasingly becoming the target of online scamming and identity theft.
The report noted that the most common threat to online gamers was login theft. However, not only were attempts by message bots (of the kind valiantly combatted by Valve) increasing, but alarmingly Microsoft found that incidences of tartef virus attempts had risen by 156%. Tarteff viruses specifically record gamer's login user IDs and passwords, in order to gain complete access to online game accounts.
Cliff Evans head of Microsoft Security UK said:
"It's all about getting login credentials. The question is what might they do with those credentials.They might sell them because they are worth something, By using them they can obtain certain things within the game or they can buy services through some sort of market place.
"There's clearly a financial angle to it that makes it worthwhile."
For games like World of Warcraft or Second Life that involve serious money - or even distribution platforms like Steam that require credit card transactions - these new figures pose a serious threat to gamers, and thier wallets.
But its not all bad news. Microsoft are adamant that they are on top of these security problems. The company reports that incidences of security breaches per 1000 computers are down. So, to all you PC gamers out there, if you havent updated your virus and malware software now might be a good time to do so. There's more than just your operating system at stake.
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COMMENTS (6)
I thought I had my account hacked, but it turned out another person I knew was playing on my XBL account on PC. What a fail...
Thats why ya switch to consoles lol
Might be a retarded question but can a 360 or PS3 get a virus/trojan or the likes?
World of Warcraft accounts get hacked all the damn time. Originally, I thought that it was just nubs who were looking at porn or warez sites and getting keyloggers, but a friend of mine who doesn't do those kind of activities recently got her account hacked. Such a shame when you have to have an authenticator to stop this kind of thing from happening. You're WoW account shouldn't end up more secure than your bank account.
Ive been lucky this sort of thing hasnt happened to me, in WoW it happened to one of out main guild members and they pillaged the entire vault lol luckily got it back and his account was sorted out.
Thats why ya switch to consoles lol
Might be a retarded question but can a 360 or PS3 get a virus/trojan or the likes?
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