Jun 11, 2019 Vili Lehdonvirta: In the 1990s the first massively multiplayer online role playing games gave rise to this phenomena of players trading virtual goods inside the game for real money. The game also bridged the gap between real and virtual economy. Namely, players can generate Linden Dollars (L$) by completing tasks and jobs. It’s also possible to trade real money for them. The game is unique for embracing laissez-faire policy toward currency transactions on third-party websites.

The online gaming industry has long been a big cybercriminal target. Year after year we see players being subjected to phishing attacks and account hacking, and game companies suffering attacks like DDoS and others. While these attacks occur outside of the games themselves, one of the threats we see is much closer to the gamers’ experience, and has a wide-reaching impact.

Our most recent research, “The Cybercriminal Roots of Selling Online Gaming Currency” presents our findings on a cybercriminal operation that involves cybercriminals maliciously acquiring online game currency, selling it to online gamers, and using the collected money to fund their cybercrime operations.

Exploiting Gamers’ Competitiveness

In this modus, cybercriminals exploit a particular subset of online game players that are willing to pay real money for in-game currency (specifically, the in-game currency of MMORPGs). MMORPGs are online roleplaying games that allow players from all over the world to play a fantasy adventure with each other. It is inherent to these types of games to have a competitive nature, with advantages between players usually revolving around acquiring the game’s currency and rare items.

Buying online gaming currency allows players to hoard in-game currency without having to put in the time and effort usually required to earn it legitimately within the game. Such an activity is frowned upon by many online game developers and their companies. The practice is considered a form of cheating and usually deemed a “bannable” offense.

https://iumyellow.amebaownd.com/posts/20400684. Cheating in online games is not against the law, and neither is the selling and buying of online game currency. Cybercriminals are well aware of this and have created for themselves a way to exploit it. Many websites selling online gaming currencies for games such as FIFA, World of Warcraft, and Path of Exile have popped up, with some offering services like catching Pokémons in the popular game Pokémon Go. These sites have their own ads, promos, and even encrypted payment systems. In fact, most of them function just like online shopping websites, promising fast and safe transactions as well as 24/7 live chat support.

Enterprises Become Collateral Damage

The exchange rate that casinos offer is sometimes a great deal and may well be your best option. . Currency exchange desks at the airport or your hotel may make you pay more than 25% in fees. https://iumyellow.amebaownd.com/posts/21652189. It’s good practice to visit your local bank to have some cash in hand before you leave your home country.

As cybercriminals farm and sell the online gaming currency—which nets them real-world cash—they funnel these funds into their cybercriminal activities, some of which include targeted attacks against enterprises, corporations, and even game servers. We saw such instances with attacks coming from hacking groups such as Lizard Squad, Team Poison, and Armada Collective.

Based on these reports, we can say that the act of buying online gaming currency is, in essence, a cyclical, self-defeating effort: by paying for illegitimate methods to get ahead of the game, players also unintentionally fund the downfall of the online game they’re spending money on.

What does this mean for those affected by this particular operation? This ultimately means that players need to recognize the harm that they’re doing to their favorite games by buying online game currency and be able to stop themselves and others from contributing to such efforts. Enterprises—whether they’re involved in these online games or not—also need to realize that cybercriminals have what is essentially a legally-gray money-making operation, and step up their defenses to protect against the attacks fueled by online game currency selling.

Perhaps some legislation outlawing cheating in online games may be excessive in terms of a deterrent in this case, but if something can be passed regarding the sale of such services, it may be able to deprive cybercriminals of this particular revenue stream. But as long as there is a lack of any law regulating online game currency, we may be seeing more and more cybercriminal groups take advantage of this particular modus operandi.

For more details about this particular cybercriminal MO as well as the cybercriminal groups we’ve seen to be embroiled in such, read our full report “The Cybercriminal Roots of Selling Online Gaming Currency”.

Learn how to protect Enterprises, Small Businesses, and Home Users from ransomware:

In Game Currency To Real Money Converter

First, Linden Lab is banning gacha mechanics in Second Life. I’m slightly embarrassed that my first reaction to this news was “There’s gacha in Second Life?” I’ve known for ages that people could make and sell content and services in that game, but I frankly haven’t thought about Second Life since before the lootbox controversies and so it simply never occurred to me that users would be using gacha mechanics there. Once mentioned, though, it’s totally obvious that it would happen.

But what’s interesting to me about this is that the announcement specifically says this move is because of “a changing regulatory climate”. I’m not aware of recent changes to regulations around gacha, so I’d love to know more about what prompted this action and what the discussions around the “difficult decision” were like.

It’s worth noting that we have gacha in real life and have for a long time. There are the physical capsule/gashapon machines from which the mechanic get its name, and also things like blind-boxes and CCGs. Why aren’t these seen as just as problematic and exploitative? Why isn’t there a “changing regulatory climate” around these?

I think that it’s mostly because the physicality of the product creates a secondary market. If you like buying a surprise, you can buy through gacha; if instead there’s a specific item you want (either because you only like some of the items in the set or because you’re looking to complete a collection) you can buy from someone who already found that specific one. And if you buy a bunch through gacha and decide you don’t want to keep everything, you can recoup your expenses by reselling your duplicates or undesirables to someone who does want those specific ones. Heck, you could plausibly buy a bunch of gacha, decide you don’t want any of them, and sell them all for a profit.

This flexibility makes the entire system less exploitative. Resalability both makes gacha-purchases more valuable and prevents anyone from being “forced” into gacha and potentially-bottomless spending to get the specific thing they want.

I would argue that what makes gacha a problem in video games (game design considerations aside) is lack of resalability. This is what makes it a money hole that takes more money from consumers while providing less value in return - other cheaper options are removed for users trying to get specific things and users have no way to get any portion of their money back after spending.

In Game Currency To Real Money Free

I have never played Second Life, but my understanding is that the in-game currency can be easily exchanged with real-world currency via an external market and that user-created goods are resalable - indeed, Linden Lab’s announcement refers to the ability to re-sell items that had been purchased through gacha and indicates this remains intact. So that means that gacha within Second Life does, in fact, have a secondary market and thus avoids the pitfalls and exploitations of non-resalable in-game gacha.

I previously