Cyber-criminals Targeting Online Gaming Websites

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Cyber-criminals Targeting Online Gaming Websites

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday October 12, 2010 @08:12AM from the no-its-all-your-fault dept.

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."

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Another security article boils down to one thing.. by digitaldc · 2010-10-12 08:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

...keep your Anti-Virus software updated and running at all times.

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He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Gaming Websites?? by Modern · 2010-10-12 08:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
Re:The list by Stavr0 · 2010-10-12 08:21 · Score: 5, Informative

C:\WINDOWS\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS
0.0.0.0 Gamesfactoryinteractive.com
0.0.0.0 Games-digest.com
0.0.0.0 Mariogamesplay.com
0.0.0.0 Anywhere-games.com
0.0.0.0 Galacticflashgames.com
0.0.0.0 Towerofdefense.com
Re:The list by killmenow · 2010-10-12 08:22 · Score: 3, Informative

Start->Run->"notepad c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts" Go to new blank line and copy/paste: 127.0.0.1 gamesfactoryinteractive.com 127.0.0.1 games-digest.com 127.0.0.1 mariogamesplay.com 127.0.0.1 anywhere-games.com 127.0.0.1 galacticflashgames.com 127.0.0.1 towerofdefence.com (Save the file) Profit.
407e6 by dhTardis · 2010-10-12 08:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
Re:The list by Abstrackt · 2010-10-12 08:33 · Score: 3, Informative

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS
0.0.0.0 Gamesfactoryinteractive.com
0.0.0.0 Games-digest.com
0.0.0.0 Mariogamesplay.com
0.0.0.0 Anywhere-games.com
0.0.0.0 Galacticflashgames.com
0.0.0.0 Towerofdefense.com
FTFY.

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They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Re:The list by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-12 08:42 · Score: 3, Informative

You don't have to reboot windows for host file changes to take affect, at least I have never needed to on Windows 2000, XP, Vista or 7....
You might have to close your web browser, in rare cases an ipconfig /flushdns but reboot isn't needed.
Sites powered by Google Ads by Animats · 2010-10-12 08:47 · Score: 4, Informative
Looking at the list of "evil sites":
- Gamesfactoryinteractive.com - not in DNS, not in Whois. The article probably has the domain wrong.
- Games-digest.com - domain registered in Korea.
- Mariogamesplay.com - has Google ads
- Anywhere-games.com - has Google ads
- Galacticflashgames.com - On Google's "This site may harm your computer" list, yet it contains Google ads.
- Towerofdefense.com - hosted by HostGator
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.
My solution by Weaselmancer · 2010-10-12 09:33 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

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Weaselmancer
rediculous.