Cyber Security And Game Design

Security Practices In Game Design and Development

Introduction

The most common pass time in today's world is playing a game online. Whether you are a teenager or an oldie there is a game available for you. We all are familiar with games like Candy Crush, Mini Militia Pokemon Go, PUBG, etc. A majority of the enterprise software development company today is employed in the video game industry. It is also one of the most sought after because that's where the money is!

Today the gaming world is a serious business. One can find a game development company having a turnover of millions of dollars. With so much money involved, there arises an obvious threat. Hackers are present worldwide to tab the data of players. It can be their personal information or even financial. It is easier to hack a gaming platform than hacking a bank website. With this lingering threat, arises the concept of cybersecurity in gaming. Game designing is a very creative and technical field to work with. Naturally, it has attracted a large crowd of young developers to take up game development as a profession. Every year the number of students enrolling for a degree in game design is increasing. There are newer technologies like AR VR Development , picking up a fast pace and growing the game domain. It transports the player out of the real world. These require experts for development as well as security. Development studios are willing to pay people with such capabilities. Building a secure gaming environment is in their favor as it helps them attract a number of gamers willing to play. Thus, these development services improving security prove to be very fruitful.

Ways to improve security:

Online gaming is all about the thrill it creates. It's not only about competing against your friends but against the best players in the world. This lucrative setup is the cause of online gaming security issues. There are countries that have cyber borders to prevent it but the smart gamer avoids those by employing techniques like VPN (Virtual Private Network).
The modern user is aware of security breach occurrences in the area of gaming. The problem is that they do not know exactly how it takes place. Activities like phishing, password stealing, fake crack files and fake apps done by hackers are difficult for a layman's understanding.
Recently multiple game security violations were detected with games, like Minecraft, Fortnite, and League of Legends to name a few.

Thus, for any game development company, some points are to be kept in mind for cybersecurity.

1) Secure Servers:
Any higher level designer would give an opinion that online servers are the easiest target. It is also the most targeted due to the amount of sensitive data it holds.
Just as it is very important to protect your game application, it is equally necessary for your servers to be theft free. Installing firewalls, intrusion detection systems, conducting files audit, and QA tests.
2) Threat Modeling Analysis:
Threat modeling analysis is a comprehensive assessment method employed during the development of the project under scrutiny. Special attention is paid to sources of UDP and unauthenticated data arriving from users or clients. Such analysis is largely used for video game security.
3) Penetration and Vulnerability Testing:
Ethical hacking is the most ideal way to find out the loopholes in the game developed. It helps us realize the weak points in our software. It goes beyond normal data integration solutions and authenticity with an aim to play a white hat hacker.

4) Use automated tools:
Game developers can make use of some automated tools which will help them in building a secure and hassle-free product

PreFast: It is a free tool offered by Microsoft. It operates its working through all execution paths. It uses C/C++ to detect bugs that are often left undetected by the compiler.

Windows Application Verifier: Commonly it is known as AppVerifier. It is a tool that makes common programming errors more detectable. AppVerifier checks parameters passed to API call, injects erroneous input to check error handling ability, and logs changes to the registry and file system.

What a Player can do?

Contrary to what the developers do, it is an equal responsibility of a user to follow some steps when gaming.
1. Always opt for multi-factor authentication.
2. Use a long and complex password.
3. Always read permissions before agreeing to them.
4. It is advisable to not use the email i.d. used for official purposes
5. If you engage with in-app purchases, avoid storing information about your 6. credit/debit cards on your gaming console.
7. Practice safe browsing.
8. Always keep privacy settings ON.