In the present day, mobile games are becoming the most preferred apps for smart device users. Due to the rise of smartphone users, there is a rapid growth in the mobile gaming industry.
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This has led to a quick rise in the gaming business. So, opportunities are huge in this particular sector. But, the gaming business owners, as well as developers, also need to essentially embrace the reality which cyber security poses a significant risk.
Although, most of the developers are still not aware of how much effect these security threats can have on their whole brand reputation as well as revenue.
Now, we will discuss the key security concerns that the mobile gaming sector is currently experiencing, as well as what developers can do to combat them.
1. Reverse Engineering And Malware
Reverse engineering attacks, as well as malware infections, are more common in those games which have gained a huge amount of popularity.
Hackers can reverse-engineer the game assets, underlying art, code, as well as data assets of the game. After that, they can repackage them to be launched as a clone in the market.
Malware can infect a vast majority of these types of cloned games, which might impact the original game’s reputation. Flappy Bird was first launched in the Apple App Market in the year 2014, and it quickly became one of the most popular free games.
As per developers, it generated approximately $50,000 per day just from sales as well as ads. Surprisingly, after a month, 60 or more game clones were put into the store every day, with the majority of them infected with malware.
2. Shortcomings In The In-App Purchasing System
While the majority of mobile games depend on in-app purchases to generate income, many of these systems contain critical security issues that enable hackers to obtain free access to gaming functionalities along with add-on items.
Indeed, a flaw in the case of the in-app purchasing system of Apple enabled threat actors to make 8.4 million fraudulent transactions in 2012. Due to this problem, over 115 games were impacted, with a huge amount of revenue losses.
3. Unauthorized Installations And Piracy
There are a plethora of 3rd party stores for mobile applications all around the globe, with the majority of them providing Android apps. These app shops usually entice app creators with the promise of higher revenues.
In truth, these untrustworthy app shops are also home to cloned or pirated app versions.
This type of apps comes with malware risk. Also, it causes a significant loss in revenue.
4. Keep Your Code Safe
Code that is not checked generally is associated with the mobile malware risk. Thereby, it hugely infects the app infrastructure. This causes vulnerabilities as well as bugs in the game. Often the developers neglect this point.
According to a recent report published by Infosecurity Magazine, malicious malware is affecting more than 11.5 million smartphones at any one moment, with the number set to rise dramatically shortly.
To discover as well as react to vulnerabilities, developers should properly evaluate their code.
This would protect their gaming applications from current security concerns such as reverse engineering as well as injection attacks. It would almost certainly inhibit malicious apps to reach the market.
5. Ensure That The Device Is Secure
The security of the underlying device is just as crucial as securing code. Developers must devise methods to verify as well as assure the security of the host device, based on the app architecture.
A major thing that a developer will focus on checking is that if the application sandbox in the mobile OS is intact. Rooted pose offers a significant risk since its security model may have been compromised as a result of jailbreaking.
Hackers might potentially take advantage of the extra rights granted to applications as well as use their malware to acquire basic access to contacts and SMS, which they could then exploit for fraudulent activities.
In general, the security of your gaming app is dependent on the level of security that users maintain on their devices.
6. Payment Gateway Security
Even minor flaws in your in-app purchase system might result in a loss of millions of dollars for your business.
To identify crucial spots in your payment system, consider setting up intrusion detection on the perimeter in front of your app backend, and utilize code obfuscation methods to make it harder for hackers to obtain access to your systems.
So, it becomes very important to ensure the security of your payment gateway. In this regard, you need to adopt certain approaches that will protect your payment system.
Also, it allows you to effectively respond to a breach event. The best part is that you will get enough time for that.
Because even obscured code can be deciphered by sophisticated automated tools. Also, it is very important to make use of clean programming approaches as well as rely on adequate application architecture.
7. Keep Your Servers Secure
As per a vast majority of skilled game designers, hackers mostly target online gaming servers. These are targeted mainly due to the large volume of stored sensitive data.
As a result, all necessary safeguards such as QA checks, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, etc. must be installed on your game servers.
8. Implement Penetration As Well As Vulnerability Testing
Whenever it comes to the development of mobile games, you must be able to safeguard your players’ data as well as identify security flaws as well as vulnerabilities that might result in security issues.
In this regard, penetration testing has become the most effective method for doing so. It aids in the identification of the weak points in your app. Based on that, you would be able to make effective preparation.
Conclusion
Whenever it comes to security, hackers are increasingly targeting the gaming sector. A vast majority of the gaming companies are continuously under pressure to deliver new games as well as upgrades at breakneck speeds to retain their market dominance.
This has resulted in a plethora of security vulnerabilities as well as issues for hackers to target and exploit.
However, with the solutions listed above as well as the support of security service providers, you can rest certain that the security of your gaming app is in good hands.
