Towards Designing Secure Online Games

The multiplayer gaming industry has become very successful in Asia. With the growth of online gaming, there has been an amazing growth in online gamingrelated crime, especially in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) [1]. In Taiwan, more than 37% of criminal cases relate to online gaming crime with most offenders in the age range of 15-20 years [5]. Most of these crimes can be attributed to the fact that these online games were not designed to be secure. This paper applies a design for security approach to MMORPGs and then examines what crimes could have been avoided if the games were designed to be secure from the beginning. The approach also uncovers some potential new threats and gives countermeasures for them.