Fraudulent activities are becoming increasingly common in gaming. As they worsen, they drive people away — and the implications of a dwindling player base are significant. What can developers and security professionals do to safeguard their customers?
The Importance of Securing Games From Fraud
Gaming has become a mainstream hobby. Experts predict the number of gamers in the United States will reach 229.58 million by 2029, up from 201.74 million in 2024 — a 13.8% increase. Unfortunately, as this pastime’s popularity increases, so does its value as a target. Free-to-play and always-online games appeal to fraudsters.
These incidents often start with social engineering attempts. For instance, 79% of account takeover attacks result from phishing. However, data breaches are usually just as likely. Regardless of whether gamers become victims of new account fraud, cheating hacks or credit card fraud, the experience often taints their perception of the game and its community.
The fallout from fraud begins with a declining player base. As it worsens, more people leave and fewer join. The development studio will experience revenue losses as word spreads and sales drop. Even if decision-makers consider the current losses acceptable, the reputation damage they incur may affect future projects’ profitability.
Companies may even be penalized for noncompliance with privacy and data security laws depending on the volume, type and severity of fraudulent activity. Since digital fraud is becoming more common — its frequency increased by 9% from 2023 to 2024 — time is of the essence. Developers must do more to safeguard their player base.
Fraud Prevention Best Practices for Game Developers
While many fraudulent activities target in-game transactions, just 23% of companies leverage automated bank account validation to verify authenticity. To prevent credit card and friendly fraud, they must automatically compare individuals’ routing and account numbers to the details stored in their database before processing payments.
All transactions, account creation attempts and in-game trades should require authentication protocols to safeguard against account, payment and marketplace fraud. While online environments may be able to get away with hypertext transfer protocol or transmission control protocol, they should opt for more robust alternatives.
Implementing challenge-response authentication measures like security questions, alphanumeric passwords or a Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) can help security professionals catch bots and fraudsters. Crucially, methods like this one do not adversely impact performance.
At the very least, security professionals should continuously monitor networks for unusual activity that could indicate someone is hacking or scamming other players. This helps them ensure in-game marketplaces and competitive matches remain bot- and fraudster-free. However, manual surveillance is time-consuming — they should consider automation.
The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Fraud Prevention
Decision-makers should consider leveraging artificial intelligence technology to prevent fraud. Its automation capabilities streamline monitoring and incident response, enhancing compliance with privacy and data security laws. Moreover, it frees up time for security professionals and developers, ensuring they can focus on fixing bugs, adding features or finishing projects.
A machine learning model evolves as it processes new information, enabling it to identify, catalog and report never-before-seen cyberthreats. Its data-driven insights into a person’s transaction history and online behavior help it determine whether their account has been compromised.
AI-powered behavioral biometrics can track people’s actions to ensure they are who they say they are. This is essential, considering Equifax — one of the major credit bureaus — reports that over 33% of false positives for account takeover attempts are synthetic identities. An automated risk assessment tool like AI is crucial for identifying bots and fraudsters.
One major consideration for AI implementation is performance. This technology is resource-intensive, so it may cause performance issues on the user’s end. To a security professional, a low frame rate and lag may seem like an acceptable sacrifice for enhanced security — but players may disagree. Pre-implementation optimization is essential.
Implementing Fraud Prevention Best Practices
Game development studios should consider trialing security measures within specific regions or among a particular group before rolling them out entirely. This way, they can proactively fix flaws and bugs to maximize protection.
Devin Partida is an industrial tech writer and the Editor-in-Chief of ReHack.com, a digital magazine for all things technology, big data, cryptocurrency, and more. To read more from Devin, please check out the site.
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