The folks behind EasyAntiCheat, a service that stops people from cheating in video games, deal with one of the messiest issues in the medium. People often feel that anyone caught breaking the. Cheating in video games wasn't always so scandalous: I'm old enough to have fond memories of swapping codes for Contra and Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! Cheating in online games is defined as the action of pretending to comply with the rules of the game, while secretly subverting them to gain an unfair advantage over an opponent. Depending on the game, different activities constitute cheating and it is either a matter of game policy or consensus opinion as to whether a particular activity is considered to be cheating.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Rogue online gamers have designed, sold or used computer code to crush competitors playing the popular “Fortnite” survival video game, spoiling the experience and the creator’s profit potential, the game’s maker charges in a series of lawsuits.
Cary, North Carolina-based Epic Games has sued three Americans and six foreign gamers from Sweden to South Africa for hacks that undercut the game played by more than 10 million players worldwide. The lawsuits, which were filed in North Carolina and California, allege violation of the game’s copyright and terms of use contract. One of their targets may be a 14-year-old Delaware boy.
Cheating gamers are able to overpower their opponents by using tools that allow them to see through solid objects, impersonate other players and make moves other players cannot, according to one lawsuit. Up to 100 people can play the game at a time.
When cheaters “gain an unfair advantage, they ruin games for people who are playing fairly,” Epic Games spokesman Nick Chester said in an emailed statement. “We take cheating seriously, and we’ll pursue all available options to make sure our games are fun, fair, and competitive for players.”
“Fortnite,” which costs nothing to play online, generates revenue by charging players for cosmetic options, like different outfits for their virtual character, which don’t give players an edge against rivals. Some video-game makers are aggressively cracking down on cheaters, who they fear could drive away eyeballs from advertising some developers sell, said Kevin Greene, who teaches entertainment law at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego.
“From the perspective of these game makers, it’s a big disruption,” Greene said.
None of the nine defendants could be reached for comment. Two U.S. residents in Louisiana and Minnesota and one Canadian did not have listed telephone numbers matching addresses where court summonses were sent. Two Russians, one Ukrainian, one Swede and one South African did not respond to emails sent to addresses listed in court documents. The Minnesota man, Charles Vraspir, is negotiating a settlement to the lawsuit, Minneapolis attorney Mick Spence said.
But in a letter to the North Carolina federal judge hearing one case, a Newark, Delaware, woman described one defendant as her 14-year-old son. Lauren Rogers said in the letter that the boy didn’t modify “Fortnite,” but instead obtained the tools from an easily accessible public web site that Epic Games should be suing instead. As a minor, the boy isn’t able to agree to the terms and conditions of using the game, she said.
“They are using a 14 year old child as a scape goat (sic) to make an example of him,” Rogers said. There was no answer at a number matching Lauren Rogers’ address.
The Epic Games spokesman did not answer when asked whether the company knew the player it sued was a minor before filing its case. The lawsuit said the boy has used fake names to keep playing “Fortnite” despite being banned more than a dozen times and posting videos on YouTube showing himself using the illicit software and displaying links to a web site distributing the cheats.
“Epic is not okay with ongoing cheating or copyright infringement from anyone at any age,” Chester said in an email. He didn’t respond when asked whether the company has also sued web hosting or other companies used to distribute the cheating code, or how those targeted were identified.
A 1990s-era update to federal copyright law sets up procedures where companies can demand that online service providers like YouTube remove material that violates the companies’ rights. The person or company that posted the challenged material can counter with a statement that the material isn’t illegal. But it’s largely unknown that challenging the takedown notice can give U.S. courts jurisdiction over foreign residents in the dispute, said Xuan-Thao Nguyen, who teaches intellectual property law at Indiana University.
Greene said the video-gaming lawsuits remind him of the 1990s, when music licensing organizations aggressively enforced copyrights, even for campfire sing-alongs.
“I think legally they were right but the backlash against them was enormous,” Greene said. Video-game makers “have to be careful from a public relations standpoint that, yeah, they might win the battle but they could lose the war.”
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Follow Emery P. Dalesio on Twitter at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio. His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/emery%20dalesio
We typically think of malware as something used to steal data from corporations or knock down websites in politically motivated attacks. But if you’re a gamer, sometimes it’s simply a tool for winning.
SophosLabs threat researcher Tamás Boczán has been studying this trend, and recently gave a talk about it at BSides Budapest. This article reviews his findings and offers us a chance to share some of his presentation slides.
Anatomy of a cheat
In the presentation, Boczán explained his motivation for the gaming research:
I see a lot of different malware at Sophos, and I’ve also heard a lot about video game cheats. Then I started to dig into cheating, and I found that it’s very similar to malware. What I mean by cheat is a software for changing an online, competitive game in real time.
He shared video examples of what some of the cheating looks like, though we’ve chosen to only show still shots because advertising the behavior is illegal.
In one clip from Ghost Recon: Wildlands, he shows how the player can see things he shouldn’t. He can see from the frames where the enemies are behind the walls, and some data about them, like what weapon they are holding. The enemies here are other players:
In another video sample for GTA online, we see that the cheater does a huge jump, then goes invisible. He couldn’t do these normally in the game, Boczán said.
Why Do Companies Allow Cheating In Their Video Games List
The security industry’s baby brother
He said games are similar to malware in that their methods are exactly the same. The difference is in the purpose. Their economy is also similar. There are cheat groups and companies creating anti-cheat solutions, and there has been an arms race between them for 15 years. He added:
Both attacks and defenses got pretty sophisticated over the years. They are behind the security industry about five years, but comparable. They are like a little brother to the security industry.
He described the basic set-up of the games, in which many players are connected by a server, a mutual game state is computed and the attacker – the cheater, in this case – is one of the players. The goal is to gain an unfair advantage.
As cases of cheating have risen, so have the examples of anti-cheat technology from various companies. As various sides have upped the ante, both sides have drawn in people of greater skill. He said:
Hacking an online game is not that easy any more. In the old days, script kiddies could to do it, but now hacking is a serious game that requires a skilled attacker. So why would a skilled attacker waste their time and skill on a video game?
He mapped out the sequence of events this way:
- All this was originally about having fun.
- Then the gaming industry grew.
- The games went online.
- People began to cheat for profit, just as hackers often do when targeting companies.
- In response, an anti-cheating movement has sprouted up that mirrors security companies.
Evolution of cheating tactics
Boczán told his audience that the oldest cheating method is file injection. He mapped out the process:
- The cheater modifies game data or code in memory.
- They access memory through DLL injection.
- They find relevant structure and go to town.
- The goal is either to override some part of game data or code in memory.
Nowadays both cheat and anti-cheat developers are focused on this method, he said. Anti-cheat solutions heavily obfuscate the memory contents and try to detect injections.
A second method is the use of bots, which he mapped out in this slide:
The wild cards
Spam and phishing are the wild cards in the world of game cheating. They don’t require technical skills, and they are the easiest way to steal accounts or advertise. He said:
Spamming can happen on the chat in-game, where there are no anti-spam solutions, and attacks are not mitigated at all.
Why Do Companies Allow Cheating In Their Video Games As A
In the following example, the window on the left is a spambot advertising a website. On the right is someone impersonating an admin of the game in a phishing attack:
Defensive measures
In a couple of slides, Boczán mapped out the defensive measures that are either in use or under development:
For the client side:
For the server side:
He said the anti-cheat software developers are following a similar trajectory as that of anti-malware software. Despite its problems, he said, behavioral analysis is taking more of a role in the defensive tools under development, and he has hope that such tools will work better in the near future. He also has hope for the tools under development that incorporate machine learning. He said:
Why Do Companies Allow Cheating In Their Video Games Without
About two weeks ago someone representing Valve announced that they’ll be doing machine learning as part of their anti-cheat solution, stepping on the same road some security companies have.
Though anti-cheating software developers have some work to do in improving their tools, Boczán said there are immediate actions users can take in the event they’re targeted by cheaters, though none of the options are perfect:
Why Do Companies Allow Cheating In Their Video Games Against
- Report the cheater to the game company, who will likely review it and ban the offender. Such a process does take weeks, though.
- The usual password and authentication rules apply here, specifically the use of complex passwords and two-factor authentication in games where it’s possible.
- If someone’s account gets stolen, they can report that too, and it will be restored in its current state after some time.