Cyberattacks on young gamers up 57% in 2022: report
Published on: Friday, March 24, 2023
By: FMT Reporters
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Parents should be aware of the risks faced by young players when online gaming and guide their children accordingly. (Rawpixel pic)
The report, titled “The dark side of kids’ virtual gaming worlds”, reveals the risks for young players in online gaming, and noted that focused attacks on the three- to 16-year-old age group increased by 57%, from 4.5 million attacks in 2021.
Cybercriminals mostly targeted young players using phishing pages that mimicked global titles. To reach parents’ devices, fake game sites were created to lure children into following the phishing sites and downloading malicious files.
Last year, 232,735 gamers encountered almost 40,000 files, including malware and potentially unwanted applications, that were disguised as the most popular children’s games.
Since users of this age often do not have their own computers and utilise their parents’ devices, the threats were most likely aimed at obtaining the adults’ credit-card data and personal information.
According to the report, from January to December last year, nearly 40,000 users tried to download a malicious file mimicking the popular kids’ gaming platform Roblox.
This resulted in a 14% increase in the number of victims, compared with 33,000 gamers attacked in 2021.
Since half of Roblox’s 60 million users are under the age of 13, the majority of victims were likely children who lacked knowledge of cybersecurity.
Scams on children’s virtual worlds
In total, over 878,000 phishing pages were created for “Roblox”, “Minecraft”, “Fortnite”, and “Apex Legends” last year. These sites claim to offer cheats and modifications for these games, including entire manuals on how to install the cheat codes properly.
Of note is that there are specific instructions about disabling antivirus software before installing a file. The longer the user’s antivirus is disabled, the more information might be collected from the victim’s computer.
Players are often asked to turn off antivirus software while downloading a suspicious file.
Other key findings in the report include:
The top two most popular titles exploited by cybercriminals last year and in 2021 were “Minecraft” and “Roblox”.
Even games for the youngest children were not spared, such as “Poppy Playtime” and “Toca Life World”, primarily designed for three- to eight-year-olds.
There was a 41% rise in the number of users (about 10,000) who downloaded malicious files disguised as the multiplayer game “Brawl Stars”.
To keep your children safe online:
show interest in your kids’ online activity, for example by asking them if you could watch their favourite series or listen to music together;
install parental-control apps, but do explain to your kids how and why these have been implemented;
be a role model by watching your own habits, such as not using your smartphone while talking or eating, and keeping track of whether your kids mimic your habits or behaviours;
discuss with them on the importance of internet security, such as not sharing personal information online or clicking on unknown links.
