Gaming industry sees 12 billion attacks in 17 months: Akamai

During a period of 17 months (November 2017-March 2019), there were 55 billion cases of credential stuffing attacks across all industries.

Young boys play the game "Honour of Kings" by Tencent, during an event inside a shopping mall in Handan, Hebei province, China August 5, 2018. (REUTERS (Representative image))

The gaming industry has become a rising target with 12 billion credential stuffing attacks in 17 months, Cloud delivery network provider Akamai Technologies said on Thursday.

According to Akamai's "2019 State of the Internet/Security Web Attacks and Gaming Abuse" report, the gaming community is among the most lucrative targets for criminals looking to make a quick profit. During a period of 17 months (November 2017-March 2019), there were 55 billion cases of credential stuffing attacks across all industries.

"One reason that we believe the gaming industry is an attractive target for hackers is because criminals can easily exchange in-game items for profit," Martin McKeay, Security Researcher, Akamai, said in a statement.

"Furthermore, gamers are a niche demographic known for spending money, so their financial status is also a tempting target."

Russia is the second largest source of application attacks, but nowhere to be found in the top 10 target countries while China is ranked as the fourth highest source country, but not among the top 10 target countries.

The majority of the credential stuffing lists circulating on the dark net and on various forums use data that originated from some of the world's largest data breaches, and many of them have SQLi as a root cause, the report added.