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Re: [News] Microsoft Brings Malware to Computer Games


"Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:3205502.K7QKKAi38k@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
__/ [ Oliver Wong ] on Wednesday 16 August 2006 15:39 \__

    For example, online banking sites typically use some sort of
    encryption,
such as SSL, to protect valuable information such as your account number
and password. Some MMOs might not bother to encrypt any of their
information, sending their user's login name and password in clear text,
under the assumption that nobody cares enough to try to gain access to an
MMO account.


I don't think we talk about packet interception and sniffing here. It's a
case of malware. But please correct me if I am wrong. *smile*

I re-read the article, and it looks like they do explicitly mention "malware" as the point of attack, though that information was not attributed to Dave Weinstein, the person being interviewed, so I'm not sure if this is background research done by the reporter, or really Weinstein's main concern. I concede that the article itself is indeed about malware, though. Sorry about that.




The security expert is saying that this is not the case, and for some
players, the value of the online artifacts (extremely rare items, high
level characters, etc.) exceed the values of their owners bank accounts.
The security expert is stressing that it's not merely script kiddies who
will be going after the MMO accounts, but organized crime, because stealing
MMO accounts is more profitable than stealing credit card or banking
information.


Intersting point. My Digg account turns out to have become quite valuable. I
never ever expected this to be the case and some Digg users (at least two)
put their account up for bidding in eBay. The following was posted last
night.


http://www.calacanis.com/2006/08/16/ten-more-navigators-makes-20-or-proving-benkler-wrong-one-day/

I am among those 5.


I don't have much experience with these social bookmarking sites, so I had a bit of difficulty following along this blog post, but it sounds like because you were such a good contributer, you're not hired as a professional bookmarker? If so, congratulations. =) I'm also guessing that you're using this as an example of how user accounts themselves can be valuable.



    Again, this doesn't have much to do with Windows the operating system
itself, except that most MMO games run only on Windows.


Which is a platform that is too penetrable. It was not designed with the Web
in mind. It was not designed for /multiplayer/ gaming, let alone to be a
multi-user platform.

Hopefully, since the Wii and PS3 are running Linux internally, that'll spur some game development efforts for Linux on the PC, and eliminate one of the larger barriers for switching from Windows to Linux.


- Oliver


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