Video Game Cyber-Terror Out of Control, Wake Up Call for Governments

Posted on Monday, June 13 @ 11:23:59 Eastern by Anthony Severino

Hacking is now becoming the bane of the gaming industry. And not the hacking we're all used to, but hacks that grant users features that aren't available officially. These new hacks are more attacks than anything else and certainly aren't helping anyone - the largest of which took down the entire PlayStation Network for over a month, leaving over 77 million user accounts compromised.

Just when you thought the dust had settled on that fiasco, another few have begun. Over the weekend, Epic Games and Nintendo both confirmed that hacking attempts were made on their websites and user accounts. Following those announcements, Bethesda released a statement that hackers have also set their sights on Bethesda's sites and forums.

Over the past weekend, a hacker group attempted an unlawful intrusion of our websites to gain access to data...

We believe we have taken appropriate action to protect our data against these attacks. While no personal financial information or credit card data was obtained, the hackers may have gained access to some user names, email addresses, and/or passwords.

That type of statement is all too familiar these days.

Definitely not cool, hackers. The question is, what do these hackers have to gain from doing this aside from notoriety? And if that's their twisted reasoning, why is that notoriety so desired? I could understand GeoHot's motivations, I could even somewhat understand where Anonymous was coming from at first. But even they backed off when they realized they were only harming the gaming community.

These high-level hacking attempts are making various governments feel a little unsettled. The Pentagon has sent out a warning that any cyber-attacks made on US infrastructure would be considered "acts of war" and could retaliate with a full-blown military response. Granted they're not talking about these video-game-website hackers, but something else much more serious. But that doesn't mean that these hackers are capable of hacking into government systems.

It's not just the US military, either. Early last week, Spanish officials apprehended three members of cyber "hacktivist" group, Anonymous, in connection with the Sony attacks. But that didn't exactly go the way they had planned. Other members of Anonymous stuck back with DDoS attacks against Spain's policia.es website, taking it down for hours.

32 members of Anonymous were arrested in Turkey in connection with that attack. But seeing the game of tug of war that's going on, we wouldn't be surprised to see more attacks aimed at Turkey.

So how and when does this end? Even if these hackers believe strongly in their cause--and they do--it's still illegal (mostly). What they're doing in the video game industry end of things really doesn't seem to have any point or clear goal. Elsewhere, these attacks on government entities seem to a big mistake and is only drawing more attention to the severity of the situation.

From 2001 on, it's been all about the War on Terror. And it's a fight that will rage on forever with no real winner. While this new form of cyber-terror takes on less casualties of war, as we head into a fully digital age, these hackers are armed with extremely dangerous tools with almost no limit to the havoc they can cause. With no apparent identity, it appears as if they cannot be easily stopped.

It's out of control and there's no end in sight.

Tags: Sony, Nintendo, Epic Games, Bethesda, Hacks, codemasters

Comments

De-Ting
Joined: Nov 2006

Posted: Jun 13th, 2011 at 11:51 am
Everyone just needs to be smart and invest in better security, I think.

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Klandathu
Joined: Apr 2008

Posted: Jun 13th, 2011 at 11:58 am
Could you imagine the Pentagon sending in a Delta Force or SEALs team to apprehend a few members of one of these "hacktivist" groups? All it would take is a flashbang in mom's basement and the next thing those kids would see is the inside of a very cold, damp, dimly lit cell in GItmo that they won't be leaving for a very long time. That's something I'm more than willing to spend my tax dollars on.

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Klandathu
Joined: Apr 2008

Posted: Jun 13th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Reading that back, "flashbang in mom's basement" sounds kinda dirty.

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SweetHat
Joined: May 2011

Posted: Jun 13th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
It is dirty, it sounds like something a basement dweller would pay a hooker for, ya know kinda like a Half-n-Half except with a (insert Feminine Game/Comic/Movie/ Character here) Costume on.

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Paulmichael
Joined: Oct 2010

Posted: Jun 13th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Hackers should just stick to messing with their own things, not steal valuable information...

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SweetHat
Joined: May 2011

Posted: Jun 13th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Unfortunately thats the way the world works, we have few to no more happy go lucky hackers of yersterday who give everyone cool stuff or show us cool eastereggs. (We still have those guys around but they grew up ages ago.) Now is the Generation of "Me" hackers. They Might say " We do this for the people!" But odds are 9 out of 10 of em are in it to steal the cash in your wallet and punch your dog on the way out. I'm not saying there are no good hackers left, I am saying that the culture of hackers has evolved much like the culture of the world has evolved.

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Ranim
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Jun 13th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
You guys of course know that they've hacked the Senate.gov right?

+2 for attacking console developers and their sellout game developer *****es
-1 for ignoring the XBOX

I hope this kills the console market.

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warmaster670
Joined: Jun 2007

Posted: Jun 14th, 2011 at 6:10 am
you sound like an ******* who really needs to take a chill pill.

And yes, wishing harm on other people makes you an *******.

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JunkyArd
Joined: Aug 2006

Posted: Jun 13th, 2011 at 9:35 pm
Why not look at the positive side of all of this. The fact is, you are never going to prevent people from hacking...all you can do is write better code and programs than them. Yeah they hit Sony and it hurt a whole bunch...but now Sony is on their toes. They were a bunch of lazy asses and didn't update their security or anything. After this whole situation developers are going to be a lot more careful...they are going to develop better security...etc. Overall, as long as people react to all of this properly we might just be better off. The government is worried about hacking so maybe they will try harder to not get hacked...so when some real terrorists show up to try and hack our databases...they wont be able to because we beefed it up because of these little punks. The End

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SweetHat
Joined: May 2011

Posted: Jun 14th, 2011 at 7:48 am
well put junk, never thought about it that way.

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