Security experts have warned that the global sports industry faces the growing threat from hackers as their popularity grows around the world.
A new study from Trend Micro has warned that while the sport becomes more lucrative, cybercriminals are trying to target professional and amateur gamers and affect the games themselves.
Esports have grown rapidly in recent years and have become a multi-billion dollar industry. The tournaments have drawn thousands of fans in sold-out stadiums around the world.
Gambling threats
Trend Micro found that criminals have targeted esport for many years, but with the growing popularity, the number of attacks has also increased.
The company found that servers used by companies to host valuable gaming assets were a prime target for hackers to exploit. Trend Micro found that, as of July 25, 2019, there were 219,981 exposed gaming assets easily detectable by a search for Shodan.
Gamers are also at risk, with criminals launching ransomware attacks to block top players from their accounts unless a ransom is paid (including some players spending up to € 1,000 in Bitcoin) and malicious phishing programs deployed to steal. account details as well as financial data.
Trend Micro also warned that tournaments could be targeted by DDoS attacks or specific servers to disrupt play as much as possible and damage the reputation of some companies.
All of this may also be related to the growing popularity of illegal money games in esports as hackers can affect tournament results to win big money for criminal companies.
"If we know one thing about malicious actors, it is that they follow the money." Trend Micro has already discovered that nation-state groups are taking advantage of security breaches to target the gaming industry for financial gain, and we hope they will, "said Jon Clay, director of global threat communications for Trend Micro.
"As esports becomes a multi-billion dollar industry, it is inevitable that hackers will look to capitalize in the years to come." We anticipate that the industry will suffer the same types of attacks as the video game industry, but on a much larger scale, with gamers motivated by financial considerations involving them for financial reasons. and geopolitics. "