The past year has seen a sharp increase in attacks aimed at online gaming platforms and game makers. In fact, there was a point last summer, in the wake of Sony’s Playstation Network outage, when it seemed like no video game company was safe from hackers – whether they be ideologically motivated groups like Lulzsec or run-of-the-mill cyber crooks. Most recently, Microsoft’s Xbox and Steam’s digital store were shown to be vulnerable to attack, while cyber crooks hit the systems of Blizzard Entertainment and compromised the accounts of hundreds of Diablo III users, raiding them of virtual gold and goods. Despite the flurry of recent activity, attacks on video game systems are nothing new. To give you some perspective, we decided to take a look back at the past 12 months in breaches and security issues affecting video game companies and their consoles.
