The level of fraud and theft in virtual worlds is sky-rocketing
and more should be done to protect participants, says an EU
body.
EU agency ENISA (European Network and Information Security
Agency) says the £1.2bn worth of virtual goods in virtual worlds -
including Second Life and Warcraft - are a soft target for
cybercriminals.
The
ENISA report says there are one billion registered players of
online games worldwide.
An ENISA report makes various recommendations to governments and
game providers to help protect users of virtual worlds.
Online gaming fraud is an increasingly serious threat and the
failure to recognise the importance of protecting real-money value
locked up in this "grey-zone of the economy" has lead to a "year of
online world fraud", says the report.
A survey in the report shows that 30% of users have recently
lost some form of virtual property through fraud. In less than a
year, more than 30,000 new malicious programs have been detected
specifically targeting accounts and property in online games and
virtual worlds.
Such malware is invariably aimed at the theft of virtual
property accumulated in a user's account and its sale for real
money.
"While annual real-money sales of virtual goods is estimated at
nearly £1.2bn worldwide, users can do very little if their virtual
property is stolen. They are a very soft target for
cybercriminals," said report editor Giles Hogben.
The report was put together by a group of industry, academic and
government experts.
The report makes various recommendations to tackle problems,
including:
- An industry-wide forum for service providers to share
best-practice on security vulnerabilities
- Clarification of virtual property rights for more adequate
theft protection
- A checklist of key technical issues for service
providers/developers
- Awareness-raising campaigns for users, including child-safety
and privacy risks