Microsoft says gamers are top target for Malware

by Steve Ragan - Feb 23 2009, 15:00

Late last week, after they published the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) numbers for the first part of the month, Microsoft said that gamers were the top target in the first part of February. According to the data collected from the MSRT, almost 1 million computers were disinfected after the software located password stealing Malware, aimed at taking over gamers accounts.

The top Malware families, Microsoft said, are Taterf and Frethog, with 981,051 and 316,971 machines cleaned respectively a week after the MSRT's release. According to the software giant, Taterf removals are up 171 percent when compared to January’s totals.

The data Microsoft presents coincides with what they said in their Security Intelligence Report from the first past of last year. “The increasing popularity of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) has created a new online economy in which players auction off hard-won virtual “gold” and in-game equipment for real-world cash.”

“Though the games’ makers usually discourage such commerce and often penalize players who are known to engage in it, the possessions and attributes of a well-stocked character can fetch hundreds of U.S. dollars from game devotees. Perhaps inevitably, this has led to the development of a curious new class of threat—Worms and Trojans that steal players’ gaming passwords on behalf of thieves who can then auction the victim’s virtual loot themselves,” Microsoft said at the time.

Another interesting fact is that the infections discovered this month were mostly in the U.S., with Taiwan, Korea, Turkey, and Spain rounding out the top five spots. There were over one-hundred thousand infections in each of the top four, which can be related to Warez, Cracks, Pirated programs and other downloaded software.

Some gamers like to take an easy way out, using trainers, cracks, and other bits of assembled code to augment their game. However, most of these applications are malicious in nature. When you combine that with lack of patching, no anti-Virus protection, or anti-Virus protection that is out of date, you can see the storm that is brewing. As proven with the MSRT’s stats, eventually if you take take shortcuts, you get Pwn’d a different way.

Of the games Microsoft was able to identify, World of Warcraft made the list, along with Rainbow Island, Lineage, MapleStory, Legend of Mir, Qqgame, A Chinese Odyssey, Hao Fang Battle Net, Gamania, and Cabal Online.

The trick to avoiding these types of infections while playing a game is straight forward. Never use pirated game software, avoid cracks, and other applications such as trainers, and never login to your account on a system you do not own or trust. As always, remember to maintain updated system patches and anti-Virus software.

The Tech Herald: Recent MSRT update discovers mind-boggling infection numbers

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