Kaspersky CEO Talks About Security in Gaming

Eugene Kaspersky, Chairman and CEO of Kaspersky Labs talks on his personal blog about the need of security in the gaming industry.

The Gamescom Expo, that took place on 17-21 August at Cologne, was a great opportunity for Kaspersky Labs to make their point in regards of what needs to be done to protect the online world of gaming.

Their stand at the expo gave out tens of thousands of free trials and held press conferences on the subject.

Christian Funk, the company's virus analyst for Central Europe, talked to participants about the growing presence of malware and the shadow gamer economy.

The representative highlighted the large number of forms taken by malicious software in online leisure applications, which include Trojan keyloggers and phishing attacks. The main targets seem to be MMORPG's which have become more and more popular in the past period.

Funk also discussed the causes of these attempts to hit online communities, virtual criminals being attracted because of the large sums of money involved in virtual playing environments.

On eBay alone, an estimate of 11 million Euros were stolen in virtual artifacts, on the course of this year, these facts making security solution providers be more aware of the need for measures to prevent such actions.

So how did the community present at Gamescom receive the news about the emerging threats?

The virus analyst told his boss “I was actually surprised by the huge amount of attention we got from gaming media – the combination of gaming and security isn’t too obvious for an average gamer. But from the reactions I got from the audience while I was on stage, I could see their level of interest. I was able to spice up the facts, statistics and diagrams with a few anecdotes from my experience as a gamer, which was also good fun for me. And the interviews before and after the press conference were given in down-to-earth, non-square – gaming! – language.”