tim leedy

The Cost of DDoS

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Aug 292014
 

W_S_Security

A group going by the name of LizardSquad has been taking down various online gaming networks via DDoS attacks, as well as web sites, over the past few weeks:

  • Playstation Network
  • Battle.Net
  • NCSoft (Guild Wars 2 and Wildstar)
  • League of Legends
  • Runescape
  • Twitch
  • Tumblr
  • etc…

LizardSquad’s motivation for these attacks is to fight against corporate greed (with a tad of attention seeking throw into the mix),  based on their comments on Twitter and Reddit.  They have gained national attention as well as the eye of the FBI.  The FBI seized the lizardsquad.com domain earlier this week, but the LizardSquad seems confident they won’t get caught. Only time will tell if their confidence in their anonymity skills are up to the challenge.

Thus far, LizardSquad has shown no indication of letting up on the pace of their attacks so the dedicated fans of the various online games will still have to suffer.  The game companies also have to take on additional cost of staffing to handle the attacks, possible account cancellations, as well as possibly purchasing DDoS protection services from companies such as Prolexic.

LizardSquad, as well as other groups that target online gaming, need to be taken seriously as they can ruin the gaming experience for everyone!

I’ll be providing updates as the attacks progress and, as always, please leave a comment or opinion.

Cybercrime and Video Games

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Jul 292014
 

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Great real world example of how the cyber-baddies out there attack video game companies.  Note: It’s a technical article with loads of security speak.

“Threat Group-3279[i] (TG-3279) targets the entertainment and video game industries. Based upon Portable Executable (PE) compile dates, domain name registrations, collection dates of tools, the threat actors’ activity on message boards, and activity observed by Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit™ (CTU) researchers during incident response engagements, TG-3279 appears to have been active since 2009. CTU researchers believe that TG-3279 is associated with the China Cracking Group and that the Laurentiu Moon and Sincoder personas are TG-3279 actors. Due to information gathered from targeted hosts, CTU researchers believe with medium confidence that TG-3279 focuses on the collection of video game source code to crack those games for free use, to develop tools to cheat at the games, or to use the source code for competing products. The best method for detecting TG-3279 activity is to look for modifications to system files, invalidly signed executables, and repeated non-existent domain (NXDomain) DNS replies…”

Read the full article from Dell SecureWorks website:

http://www.secureworks.com/cyber-threat-intelligence/threats/threat-group-3279-targets-the-video-game-industry/

The Yin and Yang of Game Security

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Jul 022014
 

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Our  team produced an excellent podcast in Episode 54 that covered all of the fun stuff about the world of Nexus as well as a great discussion on how spammers, bots, and hackers are currently impacting the Wildstar game play.  It was great to hear a discussion between players who truly care about the game express their opinions, concerns, and solutions to improve game play through better security safeguards.

I am a security guy.  I have been working in the information security field for over a decade and can understand the frustration with Carbine for not doing more about stopping those pesky spammers, bots, and hackers, but here’s the thing about security: Security is a Balance between keeping the players safe & happy and staying profitable to keep the business up and running. Continue reading »

Knowledge vs. Lore

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Jul 172013
 
W_R_Path

The Doctor is in!

This column dissects, bisects, and totally gouges out the gory details of Wildstar’s path system. As a Doctor of Path-ology, I have taken my Hypocritic Oath to research and probe the world of Nexus and keep you up to date with all the latest changes that may impact your character. This week, we look at The Scientist! Continue reading »

Will You Have to be Social to be a Settler?

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Jul 082013
 
W_R_Path

The Doctor is in!

This column dissects, bisects, and totally gouges out the gory details of Wildstar’s path system. As a Doctor of Path-ology, I have taken my Hypocritic Oath to research and probe the world of Nexus and keep you up to date with all the latest changes that may impact your character. This week, we look at the social aspect of the Settler path! Continue reading »

Wildstar Path-ology

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Jun 242013
 
W_R_Path

The Doctor is in!

This column is going to dissect, bisect, and totally gouge out the gory details of Wildstar’s path system.  As a Doctor of Path-ology, I have studied teachings of the Great Torvox and have taken my Hypocritic Oath to research and probe the world of Nexus to keep you up to date with all the latest changes that may impact your character.

Even though I graduated at the top of my class at the Nexus School for the Totally Insane I still welcome all of your insights into the science of Path-ology!

The Wildstar Security Agency

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Jun 202013
 

W_S_Security

We are the unofficial WSA!  We are the organization that will share security and fraud related content to make your travels across Nexus safe and enjoyable. We have a crack staff that have worked at two of the top five banks in the United States and have been CISSP certified for years.  In the days leading up to and after the release of Wildstar we’ll be sharing information on various topics that will include, but not be limited to:

  1. Account and Password safety
  2. Credit Card safety
  3. Phishing emails
  4. Gold Farmers
  5. Power Leveling
  6. Bots
  7. Malware

We will not tap your phones or monitor your email like other agencies, so we need to hear from you for topics you would like to see the WSA cover. Let us know in the comments!