It’s interesting: there are over 3.5 billion gamers worldwide, and yet, for so many of them, the word ‘cybersecurity’ is only associated with games like Watch Dogs or Cyberpunk 2077.
When we’ve enveloped ourselves in another world, it can be easy to forget the realities of our own, but the reality is that cybercrime can affect anyone – even gamers who might not think they’d be a target.
A Cybersecurity Study
Let’s look at an example. Say you’ve downloaded Call of Duty on your Mac, and you’re regularly joining competitive matches with the same online group. Over time, one player starts targeting opponents outside the game itself.
During a match, they manage to obtain your IP address through P2P networking exposure – or voice chat exploitation tools, which are commonly circulated in some gaming communities – and then they begin flooding your connection with large volumes of traffic to overwhelm your home network.
This is effectively a small-scale DDoS attack against your real IP address, and it’s something that has happened to competitive gamers for years.
Fixing the Problem
The reason this is a common – and regrettably, commonly successful – attack is because gamers undervalue cybersecurity.
Whether it’s because they think they’re unlikely to be targeted, or that the PCs or consoles themselves will have all the security they need, many gamers are more focused on having fun that they forget to pay attention to the risks.
And this needs to change. It’s not like there aren’t any tools to protect ourselves – on the contrary, there are a number of precautions that can dramatically reduce exposure to the most common attacks.
Going back to our previous example, one of the simplest security precautions would be a VPN – something that routes your traffic through encrypted intermediary servers so that your home IP is never exposed.
They’re not hard to find – you can get a reliable VPN app for your Mac here – or expensive to download, but they’re extremely effective at preventing network-based targeting and protecting your connection on untrusted networks.
Other Cybersecurity Measures
In a more general sense, you can also enable 2FA – two-factor authentication – on every gaming-related account you use, especially platforms like Xbox Live, Steam, and PlayStation Network. That means that, even if someone steals your password through phishing or malware, they still can’t log in without a second verification step.
It’s also important to keep your games and operating system updated. Security patches often fix vulnerabilities that attackers actively exploit, and outdated systems are one of the easiest entry points for compromise.
This applies to your GPU drivers as much as your OS, so make sure to regularly check for updates and install them as soon as they’re released.
Lastly, in many cases, it’s about common sense. For instance, you should be especially cautious with mods and third-party gaming tools you’re downloading.
Many of the most common malware infections in gaming come from files disguised as ‘FPS boosters’ or cheat engines, but are actually malicious programs designed to steal your credentials or hijack your system, so it’s up to you to only download mods from reputable sources with strong community moderation, and avoid anything that requires disabling antivirus protection.
