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Cyber-criminals Targeting Online Gaming Websites
adeelarshad82 writes "According to a June 2010 Nielsen NetView survey on Internet usage, online gaming has overtaken e-mail in terms of the total percentage of time Americans spend online. Only social networking scores higher. On average, online gaming now consumes a staggering 407 million hours of U.S. citizens' time per year. Unfortunately, Nielsen's not the only one that noticed this trend; cybercriminals have taken note as well and are taking advantage of this by infecting games sites—from legitimate forums and tutorial sites to shadier download sites—to attack the unwary. Fortunately though, Avast has published a list of worst gaming sites."
...keep your Anti-Virus software updated and running at all times.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Ok, here is the list of the worst offenders:
Gamesfactoryinteractive.com
Games-digest.com
Mariogamesplay.com
Anywhere-games.com
Galacticflashgames.com
Towerofdefense.com - hmm, this is one of the favourites of my kids...
So how do I set up my kid's netbooks (Firefox on WinXP) to not go there, for all accounts?
Those must be the most infested, never before known gaming websites in internet history. I think they must of paid somebody to put those sites in the article.
On average, online gaming now consumes a staggering 407 million hours of U.S. citizens' time per year.
A whole hour and 18 minutes per person per year? That's nearly 0.0015% of the time! I don't see how the US ever gets anything done at that rate.
Worst offenders, as of October 6, 2010:
Gamesfactoryinteractive.com
Games-digest.com
Mariogamesplay.com
Anywhere-games.com
Galacticflashgames.com
Towerofdefense.com
ea.com
Honestly I'm beginning to think I'm better off with a hardened router with no upnp enabled and rules for traffic on certain ports. a good firewall is a convenient way to track what programs are going in/out but the AV sucks up too many cpu cycles.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
"Nielsen's not the only one that noticed this trend; cybercriminals have taken note and are taking advantage of it, too, infecting games sites—from legitimate forums and tutorial sites to shadier download sites—to attack the unwary."
Infecting them with what? Themselves? The article gives no details about how criminals use gaming sites.
"Avast's worst offenders, as of October 6, 2010:.."
Why are these the worst? How do they do harm in a capacity the others do not?
What does visiting them actually do?
Now, by gambling, do they mean e-trade and td-datek-ameritrade or whatever its called now?
Or checking out zillow zestimates and buying real estate, because real estate only goes up?
I believe second life got rid of all its casinos. Is second life still online?
Then theres the gamble of risking your reputation on online dating sites...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
So which category are they counting my pr0n in?
(Seriously, there's 8 posts and none of them mention this. How /. has fallen...)
So whats up with the 'if all us internet time were condensed into one hour' not having any time for pr0n? Or is that assumed diplomatically to be the 20m 36s piece of the pie chart?
What the heck is a portal and what have people been doing there for 2m 36s out of every internet hour? Is that the "make AOL your homepage" that only newbies do?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Is this Cyber-Alert Week for the Obamarama Cyber-Security Team hyped by the propaganda from
Richard Clarke.
Yours In Moscow,
Kilgore Trout, C.I.O.
I read the summary as "Avast is loosing market share and are desperately trying to increase shareholder value". That is pretty how I read all the press-releases from anti-virus vendors who "discover" that "the virus" is being spread on the "Internets". BUY OUR PRODUCT OR YOUR COMPUTER IS GOING TO EXPLODE! Maby these viruses really are a big problem. I don't know and don't really care, I use GNU/Linux
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
According to TFA US citizens spend 407 million hours a MONTH on online games, not 407 million hours a year. Slight difference.
Gaming is 10% of the time spend online now, and it's pretty obvious that the average American spends more than 4 hours a year online.
Signatures are the new names.
Indeed; this was my first thought also. Hardly staggering at all, is it? I'd mod you up + Informative had I mod points to do so.
The innumeracy of the summary, OTOH, is staggering... Come on, people, at least do a quick back-of-the-envelope sanity check, OK?
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien
Looking at the list of "evil sites":
I ran them all through SiteTruth, which, unsurprisingly, can't find a legit business behind any of them and thus down-rates them as junk sites.
AV programs tend to be easily bypassed. Instead, use what the parent suggested, but add AdBlock, IP blackholing, sandboxie, BetterPrivacy, and other items. These utilities will do a better job for keeping the Web browser from being a vector of infection than any AV software out there. If you need AV for Windows, grab MSE and call it done. If really paranoid, run your browsing in a VM that rolls back all changes.
I'd agree with you if I hadn't been using their service for around 5 years for free, and had all my friends and relatives who needed a good home AV also use it for free.
They do have a paid version, but the free version is just fine. All they ask for is a little information you input yourself so its not like you even need to tell the truth except for a valid email address.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
If you need some decently secure web browsing, boot a Knoppix CD. By default it doesn't even mount your hard drives. And all changes to the ram side of the unionfs filesystem expire with a reboot.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Typically not mentioned in summary.
you had me at #!
Criminals try to steal money? Hardly any news. Please come back when Cyber-criminals DON'T try to abuse a specific group of sites.
"Dog bites man" is not news. "Man bites dog" is.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
innumeracy of the summary, OTOH, is staggering... Come on, people, at least do a quick back-of-the-envelope sanity check, OK?
Envelope? I've heard of that, I think, but where might I find one?
(Oh, wait; I found one. It was down in the basement, right there on a shelf next to the typewriter. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Im sure they were trying to be family friendly with their questions, but realistically, there has to be (more than none at all), and it would be interesting to see if it was above or below the gambling use.
Envelope? I've heard of that, I think, but where might I find one?
Glass houses, kid. I remember when I read this and laughed. Learn from my mistake. It will happen to you too!
Oh, and get the hell off my lawn.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
but I have already become frequent guest of www.flashgame001.com ,they offer high quality amusing flashgames.
take time to indulge in www.flashgame001.com
My Level 80 Rogue shall stop them! Stop! Ninja Time!