A new global survey, conducted by Kaspersky, explores the attitudes of gamers towards cybersecurity.
A survey commissioned by Kaspersky, revealed that hacking is perceived as a serious problem by 64% of UK online gamers, as half of those report their account have been breached in the last 2 years. Despite cybersecurity being felt as a bigger problem by professional gamers (77%), a quarter of respondent thinks it’s also an issue for game providers, with 59% fearing that gaming accounts are not properly secured.
According to Statista, the video-game industry is projected to reach $5.59b in 2022, with the number of users in the UK expected to amount to 49.1m users by 2027. Kaspersky data shows that gaming is ‘extremely important’ for a third of consumers, with nearly a quarter playing more than 25 hours a week. For some it is even a viable source of revenue, with 17% of UK players actively building up an income from it and another 32% happy to make some money by playing or streaming.
Over half (51%) of UK players are reported to be using online games that require a gaming account for the majority of the titles and a higher percentage (64%) thinks that hacking is a problem for online gamers. Kaspersky’s research showed that 33% of UK’s gaming accounts have been hacked in the last 2 years, with the loss of gaming progress and the loss of in-game currency being the most prevalent consequences. In 39% of the cases, cyber breaches have also affected other gamers in the team.
"It is very important to stay safe on the Internet, not to share passwords, not to speculate with video game accounts and not to gamble either, said David Alonso ‘Lozark’, head of esports at Giants Gaming. “Keeping your personal data is very essential while online, the more public information you post can make it easier for people to steal your data. Many players have had their accounts stolen and then hackers have spent a lot of money on skins, for example" he added.
According to the research, Brits are also the biggest spenders in the whole of EU, with more than a quarter investing a ‘high sum of money’ (26%) on peripherals, nutrition and in-game currency. UK gamers also hold the highest step of the podium for crypto mining, with nearly a quarter (24%) having mined crypto currencies for longer than 2 years.
“With so many Brits choosing to play online games – and subsequently making in-game purchases such as currency tokens, it is no surprise that the appetite for hackers to infiltrate their accounts is on the rise, be it on the end-user side or the game provider side” stated David Emm, Principal Security Researcher, Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky. “Given the high amount of in-game spending, it is however encouraging to see that more than a quarter of our respondents strongly agreed they would like to know more about cybersecurity: it’s important that gamers become security aware and it seems there’s an appetite for this in the gaming community”.
The full report is available via this link.
In order to maintain high-level computing performance and healthy system security, Kaspersky recommends the following:
- Use unique, complex passwords and 2FA to protect your gaming accounts
- Beware of phishing campaigns and unfamiliar gamers. Don’t click on links in unsolicited e-mails; and it’s always better to browse to a site by typing it in or using bookmarks or favourites.
- Buy games only on official sites and wait for the sales — they regularly take place, so you won’t be sitting on your hands for long.
- Reliable security solutions can support specific modes, created for gamers. For instance, “Gaming” and “Do not Disturb” modes in new Kaspersky solutions turn on automatically while users are gaming, watching movies or on a video call, and turn off when they are done. When apps intended for work, study or play are used, the relevant mode activates itself, hiding tasks and notifications. Users only receive critical security alerts when their attention is required.
