{"id":30415,"date":"2020-09-11T06:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/?p=30415"},"modified":"2023-10-10T11:34:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T17:34:05","slug":"cybersecurity-tips-for-a-happy-national-video-games-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/2020\/09\/11\/cybersecurity-tips-for-a-happy-national-video-games-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybersecurity Tips for a Happy National Video Games Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This year more than others, for many of us, it\u2019s gaming\nthat\u2019s gotten us through. Lockdowns, uncertainty, and some\npretty darn good releases<\/a> have kept our computers and consoles switched on\nin 2020. GamesIndustry.biz<\/a>,\na website tracking the gaming sector, reported a record number of concurrent\nusers on the gaming platform Steam for several weeks as the lockdown went into\neffect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to NationalToday.com<\/a>,\nthe authority for such days, video games are an $18 billion industry that trace\ntheir origins to the halls of prestigious educational institutions like Oxford\nUniversity and MIT. Not surprisingly given, the nature of our work, they\u2019ve\ncaptured the hearts and imaginations of a good number of here at Webroot. But again,\ndue to the nature our work, we\u2019re well attuned to video game-related hacks and\nscams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This March, 66 malicious gaming apps were discovered<\/a> to have evaded reviewers and found their way into the Google Play store. In April, just as coronavirus was beginning to keep most of us indoors, Nintendo was breached<\/a> and the accounts of more than 300,000 gamers were compromised. Phishing attacks posing as gaming platforms have risen significantly during this time period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But too often we hear from gamers that they don\u2019t use an\nantivirus. With all the time gamers spend online, especially PC gamers, this is\na big risk. Many of the reasons we hear for not using an antivirus, in fact,\nare based on misconceptions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, to clear up some of those misconceptions, and to provide\nsome tips for spending National Video Games Safely, we sat down with\ncybersecurity expert and resident gamer Tyler Moffitt to get his advice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What kinds of security threats do gamers face?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not running any security is the main one. It’s a big problem\nwithin the gaming community. There are also tailored phishing attempts for\nonline games where accounts can be worth over $100. The happen on platforms\nincluding Blizzard, Steam, Epic, Riot and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do cybercriminals target gamers?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can be a niche target when big things happen like major\ngame releases. Halo, World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto, and Call of Duty have\nall been targets for scams. But PC gamers not running any antivirus solution other\nthan built-in<\/a> or free protection are asking for trouble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either by game or gaming type, what tends to be the\nbiggest target for hackers? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way most players are infected with actual malware and\nnot just giving up account info is by downloading game hacks. These are usually\naim bots or other ways to cheat at the game. In addition to making games less\nfun for other players, they endanger the cybersecurity of the individuals doing\nthe cheating. Also, trying to download games for free on torrent sites is just\nasking for trouble…or a trojan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any misconceptions about gaming security?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d the biggest one is that all<\/em> antiviruses today\nwill cause problems with gameplay. Many players imagine they\u2019ll have issues\nwith latency, or their frame rate will drop off significantly, and that\u2019s just\nnot true. While years ago this may have been the case with heavy installation\nsuites and large daily definition updates, many anti-viruses has changed\nthroughout the years to do all the heavy lifting in the cloud while still being\nlightning fast and accurate with threats. The amount of CPU, RAM and bandwidth\nusage of AVs while idle and during a scan are significantly lighter than they\nused to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can gamers do to improve online security?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I mentioned, running an antivirus is essential. There are\nlightweight options available that won\u2019t impact gameplay. Also, I recommend enabling\ntwo-factor authentication on all accounts for online games whenever possible to\nreduce the risk of falling victim to a malicious hacker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a gamer yourself, anything else to consider or personal\nbest practice to share?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to cheat or download premium games for free, especially\nwhen prompted to by clickbait-type ads, will almost always lead to a scam or\nmalware. There\u2019s no such thing as a free lunch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

See how Webroot compares to competitors in terms of\ninstallation size, scan time, and resource use in in third-party\nperformance testing here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year more than others, for many of us, it\u2019s gaming that\u2019s gotten us through. Lockdowns, uncertainty, and some pretty darn good releases have kept our computers and consoles switched on in 2020. GamesIndustry.biz, a website tracking the gaming sector, reported a record number of concurrent users on the gaming platform Steam for several weeks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":30417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2985],"tags":[21940],"yst_prominent_words":[4953,4811,5297,4379,4403,4389,4457,3609,4407,18165,4967,21677,4537,3479,4145,3777,4071],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30415"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32137,"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30415\/revisions\/32137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30415"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.webroot.com/blog/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}