Newshub18:Gaming companies are the latest victims of hackers.
Game publisher Take Two Interactive’s internal communication channels were also hacked last week after unseen gameplay footage of the next game in the Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA VI) series was leaked online. Take Two’s stock price fell more than 6% a day after the hack as investors feared it could delay development of GTA VI, one of the publisher’s flagship games. The game’s predecessor, GTA V, sold more than 5 million copies and generated more than $6 billion in revenue for the firm, according to reports.
The take to hack reflects the growing trend of cyberattacks on gaming firms both small and large. As most gamers add their digital wallets to spend money on games, as well as give personal data to gaming accounts. Hackers turn their attention to such organizations to steal data, credentials and more For example, homegrown mobile gaming unicorn Mobile Premier League (MPL) has experienced an increase in “failed cyber attacks” over the past few months. Ruchir Patwa, MPL’s vice president of security and compliance, said such examples include social engineering, where hackers pretend to be an employee or a company to gain authorized access to internal systems.
Suman Saraf, chief technology officer of cloud gaming platform BlueStacks, agreed with Ruchi. .He also notes that cyber attacks against both gamers and gaming companies have increased due to the “steady expansion” of in-game purchases – often called microtransactions. “Attackers are constantly looking for credentials, in-game currency and assets, payment details and personally identifiable informationFind out,” Saroff warns.The gaming industry, which is now said to be bigger than Hollywood, earns the majority of its revenue from the sale of digital items, access passes, subscriptions, etc. A report by Boston Consulting Group and Enterprise in November last year stated that the Indian gaming industry alone generated $1.8 billion in revenue in 2020. Experts point out that most of the revenue comes from microtransactions.
The game uses a mobile number to sign in and creates a digital wallet where gamers can store their money to make it easier to purchase digital items.
Oliver Jones, co-founder of Bombay Play, a Bengaluru-based gaming firm, noted that the attacks are mostly against real-money companies, as opposed to those who make free-to-play games. According to a report by EY and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci)India had 91 million gamers as of March 2021 and is said to be the largest gaming market (mobile, console and PC combined) after China. It is expected to triple to $3.9 billion by 2025, according to a 2021 report by KPMG.
.In August, cloud services firm Akamai Technologies reported in a report that attacks on gaming companies worldwide more than doubled between Q1 2021 and Q1 2022. India is third country for hacking after USA and Switzerland “If they hijack a million transactions a monthBut they can make millions,” said Dean Howery, director, security technology and strategy, Asia Pacific and Japan, Akamai Technologies. According to Abhishek Ravi, chief information officer of DreamSports, which runs Dream11, it helps detect and prevent any unusual behaviorusing automated tools to doAccording to Teamlease Digital, the Indian gaming industry is estimated to create more than 1 lakh jobs directly and indirectly by 2023