Online games = security issues

Posted Mar 15, 2007 at 5:20AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Titles, News, Opinions & Analysis Tags: Blizzard, Sony

Gary McGraw - concerned about online gaming security - Image 1

The games World of Warcraft and EverQuest II are immensely popular, but it could be a potential security problem. Gary McGraw, the chief technology officer of Dulles, brought up these issues in his book "Exploiting Online Games". In an interview conducted by SearchSecurity, McGraw clarified certain issues and the need for better security.

He stated that installing online games on the system actually install monitoring software deep in the kernel that keeps track of what is happening on that PC.The said software reports back various information about what the user is doing, information that may have nothing to do with the game itself.

He gave World of Warcraft as an example. It has a process called the Warden that keeps "an eye" on your PC. This was put in by Blizzard to prevent any cheating. It supposedly searches for familiar signatures of cheating tools as well as looks at the contents of any open windows while World of Warcraft is running. If all it does is prevent the exploits, then all's well, but if it's doing something else as McGraw suggests, then players have a lot to worry about.

This problem is familiar to those encountered with rootkits, which McGraw also discussed. Some time ago, Sony decided to use rootkit technology on some of its CDs. When you insert the CD in your PC, it would install a rootkit down in the kernel that would block you from performing certain tasks like copying the CD. While this is all good in theory, there were times when the rootkit would actually block the user from doing other things like listening to music.

If MMORPGs today have been doing this, isn't it the user's right to know exactly what the program is doing to his system? Perhaps now would be a good time to check your systems to see if everything is in order. If you're interested in knowing more, you can check the full interview by clicking on the read link.

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