Online games, including World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Second Life, and online poker have taken the computer world by storm. In this chapter download from Exploiting Online Games: Cheating Massively Distributed Systems, explore the kinds of attacks and hacking techniques to which online games are vulnerable. By better understanding these vulnerabilities, game developers will be able to do a better job with online game security. Chapter coverage includes the basics of game hacking, specifically six techniques:

• Building a bot
• Using the user interface
• Operating a proxy
• Manipulating memory
• Drawing on a debugger
• Finding the future

Look extra closely at bots, since most game exploits exist to create and operate them, and study a simple, sample bot. Finally, learn about controversial steps taken by one game maker to thwart cheating: installing rootkit-like spyware on a gamer’s PC to keep track of what’s going on.

Title: Exploiting Online Games: Cheating Massively Distributed Systems
ISBN: 0-13-227191-5
Published: July 2007
Authors: Greg Hoglund, Gary McGraw
Chapter: Chapter 2: Game Hacking 101
Published by Addison Wesley Professional