It's pretty hard to feel completely safe and sound when navigating the internet unless you aren't aware of the several risks that it implies. If you are a gamer and you spend a long time surfing among gaming sites and other related platforms online, you should also learn the basics of the potential risks you may run through.
How To Know If A Gaming Site Is Safe
Let's start from rule number one: not all gaming sites are the same safe. It's sad to tell you this, but keep in mind that certain sites aren't safe at all. This doesn't mean that the creators of that site are trying to steal your personal data or they want to attack your device, it simply means that someone else may do these things without you or the site's owner know it.
In this environment, online casino games seem to emerge as the most chosen category of games online. Along with online games for kids, free arcade games, adventure or action games, casino games like roulette, poker, 3D live games tend to attract a growing pool of gamers. Since the rise of online casinos nearly 20 years ago, the industry has struggled to maintain a clean and safe gambling environment online. To combat gambling addiction, several countries, including Sweden, have changed their gambling laws in recent years. Norway is currently the only Scandinavian country that does not have its own gambling license, but that may soon change. To make online financial transactions safer and to increase overall security on both a personal and institutional level, the government is now considering offering a Norwegian gambling license (source: Nettcasinos.org).
Besides the casino industry, there are today many other gambling sites that will ask you to pay for extra credits, game achievements, and so on. As a general rule, any time you visit a website and intend to do financial transactions, make sure to look at the site's information: if the URL starts with "HTTPS://", it means that the site is safe and secured. In other terms, no hacker can attack the site or the devices connected to their site.
Most Common Cyber-Security Threats
Now that you know how you can recognize a safe gaming site from an unsafe one, you should learn something about the world's most common and diffused cyber-security threats in games. Your goal is to enjoy a pleasant and safe gaming experience, this list of online threats will certainly help you:
-
Fake online goods or data
Certain game developers add plug-in software to their games. This means that while you are playing a game, the characters behave following a pre-designed model which controls them. Virtual characters can achieve some actions without your control. For example, earning online currency or similar actions that you've not ordered. Of course, the lack of anti-pug-in technology provokes a loss of gamers for the gaming site or company. -
Hacking issues
This is one of the world's most common and complex kinds of security threats for millions of online gamers. There are two main kinds of hacking issues. The first one is trojans: they can get the recorded keystrokes of the users and steal passwords or other data. Moreover, trojans with network data monitoring skills can analyze the user's account password. The other kind of hacking issue consists of human hacking. Skilled hackers may pretend to be customer service employees of the game site and attract the user with information about the highest winning, huge jackpots, and other captivating information. When the user communicates the fake customer service member their password, the hacker can thus steal the player's account. -
Server maintenance problems
Another very common cyber-security issue in online games is the server maintenance problem. If everything is under normal conditions, the parameters from the firewall are trustworthy. But if the firewall displays parameters that aren't worth the trust of the server, it's a sign that you should verify that site. Either way, you'd better avoid continuing to navigate through that site. -
Malware
Several online games are prone to malware menaces. Malware can actually steal personal information like the Badr malware that went through links in social media platforms, including Telegram, Discord, Youtube. Expert engineers reveal that Badr was a malware that could steal and store huge amounts of data in less than a minute. Among the most typical data hacked by Badr, there are the user's location, passwords, browsing history, credit card information saved on the device, Bitcoin wallet information saved on the device, and configuration files for a variety of system services.
Since virtual hacking is a serious problem for everyone, all gamers should always verify the trustworthiness of the gaming platform or site where they are playing. In case, you can't find anything about the site's verification, you'd better avoid playing there.