Last month, cybersecurity firm Akamai reported a 167% surge in web application attacks in the gaming industry, affecting millions of gamers globally. In less than a month, hackers have carried out five major attacks on gamers and gaming platforms, the most recent of which was on 2K Games.
The American video game publisher admitted that malicious actors hacked its help desk and used embedded links to infect users with malware.
Attack details
- Hackers gained access to one of the firm’s vendors' credentials by sending a communication with a malicious link to the support desk platform.
- When the gamer clicks/downloads, they receive another email with links to download 2K Launcher.zip.
- The downloaded file contains the RedLine data stealer.
Recent threats
A hacker gained access to Rockstar Games' Slack server and Confluence wiki to obtain Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 6 gameplay footage and source code and distribute them on GTAForums.
- Microsoft was seen monitoring a large-scale fraud campaign targeting gamers under the name DEV-0796. The attackers make money from clicks generated by a browser node-WebKit or through browser extensions deployed by hackers on infected devices.
- Securelist identified a malicious bundle with the RedLine Stealer, carrying out attacks on gamers via popular YouTube videos. The malware can help criminals steal critical information, such as account credentials, bank card data, crypto wallets, FTP/SSH/VPN clients, and more.
Conclusion
The gaming industry has been a bastion for cyberattackers, owing to its exponential growth over the years, and it might be worth $326 billion by 2026. The industry's growth has been spectacular, providing hackers with fresh targets to test. DDoS attacks were used effectively by hackers, accounting for 37% of attacks on the sector between May 2021 and April 30, 2022.
Publisher
/https://cyware-ent.s3.amazonaws.com/image_bank/iStock-511930700.jpg)
/https://cyware-ent.s3.amazonaws.com/image_bank/0bbd_shutterstock_2129487698.jpg)
