DEFCON 19: Hacking MMORPGs for Fun and Mostly Profit

Speaker: Josh Phillips Senior Malware Researcher

Online games, such as MMORPG's, are the most complex multi-user applications ever created. The security problems that plague these games are universal to all distributed software systems. Online virtual worlds are eventually going to replace the web as the dominant social space on the 'Net, as Facebook apps have shown, and this is big business. MMORPG game security is something that is very important to game studios and players, yet bots and exploits continue to infest all major MMORPG's, the creators and maintainers of the next generation of MMORPG's will need to understand software security from the ground up or face failure. The problem extends from software bugs such as item or money duplication, to mechanical exploitation such as botting, which leads to economic forces and digital identity theft. There is upwards of a billion dollars at stake, for both game hackers and game operators. Both Josh and Kuba have explored game hacking from both sides, and this talk presents a pragmatic view of both threats and defenses.