Security Issues In Online Games

1. Cheating by collusion
Occurs in games where one player is not supposed to know what the other players know, but exchanging of information takes place anyway.

2. Cheating by abusing procedure of policy
Certain games records the wins and losses for each player profile in a statistic database.
Abusing of certain procedures so that the player who has lost a game before, will not have his loss recorded. Therefore, the winner will not have his win recorded.

3. Cheating related to virtual assets
Trading of virtual assets is a very lucrative business.
Trading in MMORPG is therefore abused by certain players who accept the monetary assets for an item.

4. Cheating by compromising passwords
Passwords, inclusive of CD-keys for online games can be vulnerable targets for malicious users.
Upon acquisition, access is granted to crucial game data and authorization, therefore it enables cheats in various ways.

5. Cheating by denying service to peer players
Various techniques like flooding the other players connection which leads to a time out or forcing him to disconnect at the right moment can lead to benefits in computer games.

6. Cheating due to lack of secrecy
Servers and computers communicate with each other with packets of information.
Such packets of information can be intercepted and read, or inserted with different data, which enables cheat.

7. Cheating due to lack of authentication
Related to authentication between server and client.

8. Cheating related to internal misuse
Game operators and system administrators have special and privileged powers over a gaming environment which could be misused in order to cheat.

9. Cheating by social engineering
Various ways of scamming people to gain access to their passwords and CD-keys, for example, by posing as a system administrator.

10. Cheating by modifying game software and data
Traditional way of cheating in online multiplayer games.
Reverse engineering of the gaming software and the creation of special programs that can be used to gain unfair advantages can be done by cheat creators.

11. Cheating by exploiting bug or design flaw
Every game comes with bugs no matter how well coded games are.
Upon exploitation of bug or design flaw, players are able to access parts of maps deemed inaccessible or shoot players undetected.