Attackers Pummelled the Gaming Industry During the Pandemic

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According to Akamai, a content delivery network (CDN), the gaming business has seen more cyberattacks than any other industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2019 and 2020, web application attacks against gaming organizations increased by 340 %, and by as high as 415 % between 2018 and 2020. “In 2020, Akamai tracked 246,064,297 web application attacks in the gaming industry, representing about 4% of the 6.3 billion attacks we tracked globally,” reads Akamai’s Gaming in a Pandemic report. 

Cybercriminals frequently used Discord to coordinate their operations and discuss best practices on various techniques such as SQL Injection (SQLi), Local File Inclusion (LFI), and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), according to the company. SQLi assaults were the most common, accounting for 59% of all attacks, followed by LFI attacks, which accounted for nearly a quarter of all attacks, and XSS attacks, which accounted for only 8%. 

“Criminals are relentless, and we have the data to show it,” Steve Ragan, Akamai security researcher and author of the report, was quoted as saying in a press release. “We’re observing a remarkable persistence in video game industry defenses being tested on a daily – and often hourly – basis by criminals probing for vulnerabilities through which to breach servers and expose information. We’re also seeing numerous group chats forming on popular social networks that are dedicated to sharing attack techniques and best practices.”