Shocking insights

Gaming sector cyber attacks have risen by 167% over the past 12 months. Cybersecurity company Akamai released a new report on the subject, highlighting some notable figures on the digital attacks.

US companies are the predominant target for hackers

The report, titled ‘Gaming Respawned,’ discovered that US companies are the predominant target for hackers. Next on the list was Switzerland, followed by India, Japan, the UK, and various European and Asian nations.

One major form of attack prevalent in the gaming sector is a distributed denial-out-of-service (DDoS), with the industry accounting for more of these than any other business sector. The gaming industry’s DDoS attacks account for 35% of those taking place worldwide.

Growing threats

Explaining the reasoning behind the rising figures, Akamai senior strategic for the entertainment and media industries Jonathan Singer said: “As gaming activity has increased and evolved, so has the value of disrupting it through cyber-attacks.”

He said the main goal of such attacks is to steal gaming assets. According to Singer, new threats are constantly arising, particularly as cloud gaming has come to the fore in recent times. There are also greater levels of new players entering the space, many of which are prime targets for hackers.

More players, more problems

Plenty of other interesting insights arose in the report.

It showed that the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a significant uptick in gaming industry activity. According to the report, there are no clear signs of this growth slowing down despite the easing of restrictions. This heightened activity runs parallel with the major rise in the number of cyber-attacks, particularly when it comes to web application attacks.

Another major concern for gambling companies is ransomware. In June this year, a ransomware attack led to the closure of six casinos in Oklahoma.