Virtual Worlds and Fraud: Approaching Cybersecurity in Massively Multiplayer Online Games

We survey known security vulnerabilities in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), and describe how these are used to cheat. While such abuse often is aimed at gaining an edge in the game, there is a recent trend of financial fraud in MMOGs. We review common types of online fraud (such as phishing and click-fraud) that we believe increasingly will migrate into the MMOG sphere. We refer to the resulting abuse as virtual fraud. By defining a visual classification of virtual fraud, we lay a foundation to future investigations of the problem. We also use our visual classification to describe some types of virtual fraud that we believe may become particularly threatening.

[1]  Dan Kaminsky.  Explorations in namespace , 2006, CACM.

[2]  Philippe Golle,et al.  Preventing bots from playing online games , 2005, CIE.

[3]  Hao Wang,et al.  FreeRank: implementing independent ranking service for multiplayer online games , 2005, NetGames '05.

[4]  Aurobindo Sundaram,et al.  An introduction to intrusion detection , 1996, CROS.

[5]  Clara Fernández-Vara,et al.  Towards an Ontological Language for Game Analysis , 2005, DiGRA Conference.

[6]  Timo Kaukoranta,et al.  Towards a Definition of a Computer Game , 2003 .

[7]  Robert Alan Brookey,et al.  Restricted Play , 2006, Games Cult..

[8]  Chin-Laung Lei,et al.  Identifying MMORPG Bots: A Traffic Analysis Approach , 2009, EURASIP J. Adv. Signal Process..

[9]  Espen Aarseth.  Genre trouble : narrativism and the art of simulation , 2004 .

[10]  Sergio Caltagirone,et al.  Architecture for a massively multiplayer online role playing game engine , 2002 .

[11]  Sherry B. Ortner,et al.  Culture/power/history : a reader in contemporary social theory , 1994 .

[12]  Daniel Zappala,et al.  Low latency and cheat-proof event ordering for peer-to-peer games , 2004, NOSSDAV '04.

[13]  Ronggong Song,et al.  Online Gaming Crime and Security Issue - Cases and Countermeasures from Taiwan , 2004, PST.

[14]  Sebastian Zander,et al.  Achieving fairness in multiplayer network games through automated latency balancing , 2005, ACE '05.

[15]  Kang Li,et al.  Analysis of state exposure control to prevent cheating in online games , 2004, NOSSDAV '04.

[16]  Alejandro P. Buchmann,et al.  Addressing cheating in distributed MMOGs , 2005, NetGames '05.

[17]  Muthucumaru Maheswaran,et al.  A cheat controlled protocol for centralized online multiplayer games , 2004, NetGames '04.

[18]  Thomas M. Malaby.  Parlaying Value , 2006, Games Cult..

[19]  Edward Castronova,et al.  Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier , 2001, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[20]  Kymie M. C. Tan,et al.  Undermining an Anomaly-Based Intrusion Detection System Using Common Exploits , 2002, RAID.

[21]  Stéphane Natkin,et al.  Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGCHI international conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology , 2005 .

[22]  Brian Randell,et al.  A systematic classification of cheating in online games , 2005, NetGames '05.

[23]  Markus Jakobsson,et al.  Drive-By Pharming , 2007, ICICS.