The gaming industry is a major target for cyber attacks. The virtual reality industry is also under threat.

The gaming industry has been a major target for cyberattacks in the past. In the last few years, the number of attacks targeting this industry have increased by more than 200%.

Cybercriminals are now targeting the virtual reality (VR) industry as well which can lead to new challenges and problems.

The VR market is still in its infancy and it will be difficult to protect it against cyberattacks because of its complexity, lack of cybersecurity standards and regulations, and rapid technological development.

Many people are using the term “metaverse” to describe the future of life online. It’s a shared 3D virtual space that links into a larger virtual universe. This type of metaverse experience will look and feel similar to those you might have playing games.

An AI copywriting companion can provide more than just time savings. For example, Matthew Ball has written an extensive primer on the metaverses, which gives people detail about this complex topic: The ‘Metaverse’ is a network of multiple concurrent and persistent 3D avatars. This can be explored by others in real-time, for example through world maps, chat sessions and videos, each with a uniquely individual sense of presence.

It can be hard to imagine what the internet will look like in 2043, but watch this video (starting at 4 minutes) which gives a glimpse into a potential future of VR.

Expanding the range of threats being faced

What isn’t hard to imagine from our point of view in cybersecurity is that the metaverse is going to greatly expand the threat landscape. So for us, there’s a lot more to consider about the future of cyber security as it goes hand-in-hand with this world we imagine.

The gaming industry’s lackluster cybersecurity strategy is severely undermining its reputation.

The gaming industry is already providing many of the technological foundations for VR/AR, which is a major reason why it’s also seen success with other experiments in business models and platforms. Games are already huge in so many industries, with video, music, sports and fitness among others. However it’s more than just borrowing ideas for the sake of it – the repetition in games is translating to other industries including medicine and education.

SOTI has found out that:

By understands the cybersecurity challenges of the gaming industry and has a lot of experience with it. For example, one of our recent State of the Internet (SOTI) reports about this topic is called Gaming Respawned. This report examines how to handle cyberthreats through data from our networks.

For example, we tracked 821.648.208 web application attacks specifically in the gaming industry from May 2021 to April 2022, representing an annual rise of 167%. A recently published report from cybersecurity company Arbor Networks found that gaming companies are the most regular targets for DDoS attacks— accounting for 37% of all traffic observed globally in 2018, nearly twice as much as financial services.

I’ll just say it: if the gaming industry is more popular for cybercriminals than the banking industry, then we know that digital security of the future is headed in a good direction. We might as well embrace it now!

Gamers can provide 3 security insights that we should all pay attention to.

Gaming is helping us to understand more about future cybersecurity.

A previous SOTI report (published in November 2017) – You Can’t Solo Security, featured particularly useful results of a survey of 1,253 hard-core gamers (81% of whom play games every day), which we undertook in partnership with the international gaming conference organization Dr.

The results from these studies will make it easier to improve cybersecurity in gaming and the future metaverse. It will allow us to focus on a few key issues that matter more than others, including:

1. Cybercriminals are in it for more than your money

Cybercriminals are motivated by money, but they don’t value information that is directly associated with a specific individual; they value what the account will give them (e.g. someone else’s email account can be used to send out fraudulent messages).Ten years ago when online accounts first became popular, cybercriminals could nab a person’s credit card numbers and bank account information.

Playing video games is all about learning strategies and building up your account. This can take a lot of time and the benefits players receive such as items they need to progress may be lost if they stop playing. Lots of people buy accounts that are stolen, that have been playing for a long time and have enough cool stuff. These people can play at a high level without having to put in the effort they would take over years of hard work.

So-called ‘in-game goods’ can also be sold in third party marketplaces and traded for real money. The financial community is very aware of the new opportunity this provides, with investors looking to buy up NFTs – yet another area rife with cybersecurity challenges. As virtual reality becomes more popular, and more people start relying on VR for business purposes, it will become vital to protect your accounts in these new environments. One way to do this is by taking into account the various types of user behavior that could be possible in a VR environment.

2. Cybercriminals target those who are more likely to go on shopping sprees & pay bills online with cash.

Cybercriminals are becoming exceptionally adept at targeting the gaming industry where you have an affluent user base making frequent transactions. As mentioned earlier, the gaming industry is still being hit with web application attacks. This is a major security concern not just for that industry, but across many others as well. 50% of all data breaches involve these types of attacks.

According to our survey, 52% of respondents have had their account hacked, and 70% of them have come across hacked accounts being sold online, Looking into how accounts are managed in the gaming community can tell us a lot about how other professional services and industries will deal with your account in the future.

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The gamers we surveyed agree that companies must take responsibility for account security, but they also know they themselves should do their best to protect themselves. It was a multiple-choice question: 76% of them felt game companies were responsible for account security and 67% said players are responsible.

The need to align cross-industry cyber strategies

As more businesses shift their focus to the sci-fi-sounding metaverse, it is imperative that security becomes an important part of the experience. This will require a large investment in your people as well as technology. The goal should be to create a seamless security experience.

As we move into the metaverse, your organization’s exposure to vulnerabilities will increase significantly. To keep up with the fast pace of the internet, cybersecurity strategies need to be redesigned. Companies will have to work more closely together across industries, and their competitors will have to work with their security vendors in order to maintain secure user information.