Video games have been the favorite target of cyber attackers in 2020, a new cybersecurity study said.
LEIPZIG, GERMANY - FEBRUARY 15: A participant stands with a mobile phone to play a video game at the 2019 DreamHack video gaming festival on February 15, 2019 in Leipzig, Germany. The three-day event brings together gaming enthusiasts, mainly from German-speaking countries, for events including eSports tournaments, cosplay contests and a LAN party with 1,500 participants.
The report also noted that cryptocurrency wallets had their share of fame as the value of Bitcoin and other counterparts grew significantly.
Akamai Security Research revealed that gamers and video game companies frequently experienced both application and credential stuffing attacks from hackers.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which forced folks to stay at home, left some people increasingly spending their idle time on gaming. As such, gaming console stocks have become rare. It grew to the extent that restocks of PS5 and Xbox have become a phenomenal event.
By the way, here's an Amazon Prime Day PS5 Restock for your reference.
Video Games Cyberattacks
According to VentureBeat, the Akamai study highlighted that cyberattacks targeting video games saw a whopping 340% increase than pre-pandemic data. It translates to about 240 million gaming hacks in only a single year.
To be precise, the video game industry generally accounted for about 11 billion credential stuffing attacks in 2020. In total, this kind of assault saw a 224% increase in gaming, which carries a steady rate of millions of attacks every day.
As per Cloudflare, credential stuffing is a cyberattack that primarily steals login credentials to access a service.
Furthermore, Akamai attributed the rise of such attacks to the usage of commonly-used passwords among users. With that, an attacker could infiltrate accounts using popular login credentials.
The study also revealed that usernames and passwords sell on the dark web for as low as $5. Stolen credentials have become so ubiquitous that their cost has become significantly cheap.
Mobile Gaming Cyberattacks
The study warned that mobile gamers are also vulnerable to attacks through in-app purchases. Purchasing character cosmetics could lead to cyberattacks, Akamai reported. Some criminal minds will use phishing schemes pretending to sell in-game upgrades to steal personal information.
Akamai security researcher, Steve Ragan, told VentureBeat that mobile gaming drew fame as "people like to play their games on a phone versus having to log into the computer or sit down in front of a TV."
Crypto Wallets' Fame in Cyberattacks
The rise of the value of cryptocurrencies did not only catch the attention of investors, but also attracted criminal minds as well.
Akamai noted that "wallet jacking," or hacking of crypto wallets is old news as it has been a problem even in the infancy days of cryptocurrencies.
However, Ragan added that "as the crypto market gains more public visibility, and there's more money to be had, criminals focus on that." Additionally, he claimed that criminals usually buy the login credentials of crypto owners from the dark web.
Meanwhile, one of the largest gaming cyberattacks in 2020 was Capcom's, wherein it leaked about 350,000 files.
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Written by Teejay Boris
