With the worldwide casino and online gambling industry forecasted to be valued at over $266 billion in 2021 it’s not difficult to see why some of the more nefarious characters in the world would want to see a slice of that pie. It’s a constant battle for the industry to stave off these threats from hackers and potential manipulators.
Online gambling operators spend so much money on security because they cannot afford to make compromises. With the impact of people from the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing many to stay indoors for entertainment the interest in gaming from the comfort of the home has increased to record levels. Worldwide, the online gambling market has been given an estimated total value of almost $59 billion with findings from Statista suggesting that number is expected to almost double up to $93 billion by 2023, such is its growth.
Naturally, the online gaming companies are looking to stop hacks to exploit theft of their own money, but they have to protect their users, too. With statistics on the money lost around identity theft in the US alone racing to an estimated but eye-watering amount of $700 billion, there are so many avenues that hackers would look to exploit. Those avenues have been exploited with some hacks being confirmed, as a report into Chinese hackers discovered.
Contents
Coding hacks
More structured and technical hacks such as a Structured Query Language attack could be utilized by hackers and it’s regarded as one of the most commonly used methods of attack. A SQL injection attack happens when a hacker feeds infected SQL statements to take over the main database server of a particular website and from there they can add, modify, or delete data according to their will. In doing this it allows them to bypass security measures and approval checkpoints.
The importance of encryption
Threats like this have meant that online casinos are always thinking about their security, thus implementing things such as end-to-end encryption to keep information safe. This is now commonplace throughout the industry. By doing this the information coming to and from the recipient is encoded whilst transmitted and can only be understood when it arrives at its intended end of the communication. That way if it was to be intercepted, the information is unintelligible and therefore useless to the hacking attempt. Online casinos also utilize SSL encryption, which in its most basic form is a secure link between the customer, the server, and the browser.
After all, it’s not only the actual financial theft that could lower a company’s share price. The reputational damage caused if one of these companies’ lack of security were to ‘allow’ the release of user’s personal data to the world, could see their share price plummet, thus hitting the company with long-lasting damage which could be more painful than ‘just losing money.
Users Becoming More Aware
However, with the added safety measures and better global awareness of illicit attempts to steal data and cash, users have also begun to play their part in the fight by utilizing single, dedicated devices for gaming and not sharing any other details through their selected platform. Whilst that’s not available for everyone, VPNs are easily accessible and it’s interesting to see that gamers themselves are being far more vigilant, looking for different ways to evade the attempts from hackers.
The various options that casinos add-in for users to experience different ways of winning can also act as a way of avoiding the pitfalls of potential manipulation. Foxy Games has emerged as a leader in this respect, boasting a “win the way you want” policy for players. This essentially means that players can choose different reward structures to pursue while playing. Making it harder for the potential fraudster to predict what is coming next in the user’s gameplay experience, thus not allowing them to use it to their own advantage.
If you liked this look behind the curtain of casinos and their evolving avoidance when it comes to hacking and manipulation, remember to visit our homepage for more stories around ethical hacking, gaming, and much more.
