How does Blockchain Technology Tackle the Credentials Stuffing Cyberattack in Gaming?

12 billion credentials stuffing attacks have taken place in 17 months between 2017 and 2019 - Akamai. 

 

Both gamers and gaming organizations are vulnerable to such attacks. On average, up to one million such attacks take place every day. The potential behind the success of this operation is huge because your data could be sold on the black market for a hefty price. 

 

So, what exactly are credentials stuffing attacks? 

Is it possible to overcome it? 

Or, are we exposed to the risk of data breach forever? 

 

What is Credential Stuffing?

 

Credential stuffing is the method of using a list of stolen credentials that were already acquired during other security breaches. Using these stolen credentials (users IDs and passwords) hackers access numerous sites with the help of automated software. 

 

What happens next? 

 

Cybercriminals acquire complete control over your accounts and get access to the entire private information (if you’re a common user) or the database (if you’re an organization). 

 

Imagine being the CEO of an organization and losing millions of your customers’ ID, password, phone number, and residential address to an anonymous hacker. And once the hacker gains access, what’s guaranteed is extreme harm to millions of common people. 

 

Worst case scenario, they are sold in the black market, and the commoners end up in threats, suicide, and murder.

 

“Gaming accounts remain massively popular for data theft, especially when so many children have been stuck at home with a probable increase in device use and gaming purchases during the pandemic,” Chris Boyd, lead malware intelligence analyst at Malwarebytes told The Daily Swig.

 

In the USA, credential stuffing costs businesses over $5 billion per year. 

 

Recent Attack

 

In 2019, The Australian Federal Police arrested a Sydney man for allegedly selling almost one million accounts from famous streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify.

 

These are only some of the platforms we use because we believe they are trustworthy. But even the credible organizations can be breached. 

 

In another case, a hacker in the name of Gnosticplayers has put up the database of various companies for sale on the black market for 2.6249 bitcoins. 

 

Does this prove there’s no escape from the digital world and its vulnerabilities? 

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“While gaming companies continue to innovate and improve their defenses, these organizations must also continue to help educate their consumers on how to protect and defend themselves,” said Martin McKeay, Security Researcher at Akamai and Editorial Director of the State of the Internet / Security Report.

 

We can overcome the challenges. Only if we know how it works in the first place. 

 

How does credential stuffing work?
 

- Data breach: Hackers gain access to your accounts and steal your credentials and other private information. 

 

- More data breach: Using your credentials, they run it on other applications you use, and gain complete access over your entire online world. 

 

- Black market: Criminals share or sell data on Dark Web.

 

Now that we know how it works, we believe we have a potential route to tackle it. 

 

Blockchain technology 

 

As long as we are online, we are prone to such cyber attacks. However, a breakthrough technology in the name of blockchain has been successfully combating such cyber-vulnerabilities. 

 

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Here’s how blockchain can prevent credential stuffing from happening in the gaming industry. 

 

Multi-signature Technology

 

The concept of multi-signature technology is simple. It requires more than one signature to authorize a process. It can be considered as an advanced form of two-factor authentication with multiple digital signatures that cannot be replicated or forfeited. 

 

Multi-sig technology is commonly employed in cryptocurrency exchanges to prevent such unauthorized access into users’ accounts. If the same is integrated into gaming platforms and organizations, millions of data, from children to adults’, can be saved. 

 

Private Keys

 

One major benefit of using a decentralized platform is the role of private keys. 

 

Your unique wallet has a unique private key that’s just practically beyond impossible to guess or hack. With such private keys, hackers do not stand a chance of predicting with any automated tools. 

 

With just one layer of private key protection, blockchain holds the capacity to reduce the attack by more than 90%.

 

Decentralized Network:

 

Hackers’ ideal targets are centralized systems. Because all they need to do is hack the network once to own all of our data, including our passwords.

 

In a decentralized network, the rigid security protocols and one’s ownership over funds and information make it impossible to execute any form of attack.

 

The decentralized nature of blockchain makes every transaction secure. Our data is protected. It is impossible to crack. Thus it provides a safe gaming environment. 

 

Closure

 

Credential stuffing is pretty easy to execute on the vulnerable systems. Which makes it all the more important to protect our organizations and the data of millions of users who trust us.

 

 

Blockchain’s impact on gaming should be groundbreaking. And it’s about time we adapted to the new secure norms of entertainment. 

 

GamesdApp is a Blockchain-based Game Development Company that has been in the gaming industry for 4+ years. We build both traditional and entirely innovative games on top of blockchain platforms like Ethereum, TRON, (or) EOS. If you feel your dream game is worth building on a blockchain platform for the future with uncompromised security, kindly let us know. We’ll help you gamify your dreams. 

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