Identity Verification Services — Fueling the Demand for Safe Gaming Experience

Modern gaming is the most recent evolution of online games that has enchanted gamers across the globe. However, new products, payment options, and emerging technologies have made the business more vulnerable to criminal activities than ever before. Remote gaming’s recent rise, fueled by the COVID-19 epidemic over the last year, has increased financial crimes associated with the gaming business. thus, also gaining authorities’ attention regarding anti-financial crime regulations and social responsibility code. 

However, recent developments demonstrate how appealing the gaming community has become to crimes including money laundering. Thus, crimes carried out via video games are almost as old as the industry itself. While unlicensed copies and pirated versions of games were once the most common type of illicit gaming activity, recent advances and trends in online gaming platforms have opened up new opportunities for cybercriminals to defraud an industry worth almost $100 billion. What’s more concerning is that publishers aren’t the only ones who are being targeted; players are also becoming victims of this new type of criminality.

The State of Play – Financial Crimes and Digital Gaming Industry 

Emerging innovations and the use of sophisticated technologies illustrate how the gaming industry has become a victim of cybercriminals, as well as how rich the game-hacking sector has become, emphasizing the need for game creators, gaming service providers,  regulatory authorities, and players to take game security more seriously.

The key factor that makes money laundering and other complex crimes through online games possible like virtual onboarding, in-game items that sometimes have a real-life value outside the game. This includes artifacts that add additional powers to the player’s character (such as swords, armor, and magic potions) or ‘currency’ that can be used to purchase them.

In addition to this, some games allow players to buy and sell in-game products using government-issued fiat currency or with cryptocurrencies. This is known as microtransactions, and it is especially common in games that are free to play but have paid in-game products. For example, Second Life and Entropia Universe have official storefronts that allow in-game purchases. Furthermore, an increasing number of games use gambling-style microtransactions by selling ‘loot boxes,’ which are a collection of randomly-picked in-game artifacts whose contents are only revealed to the consumer after purchase.

There are no clear expectations of what game operators can or should do to uncover criminal behavior because online games are not heavily regulated in various jurisdictions. Some may be enticed to convert unlawful income into in-game products since they can be utilized to store value. Sixgill, a cyber security organization, published research on money laundering via V-bucks which is an in-game currency utilized in the online game “Fortnite”. According to Sixgill, money launderers were buying V-bucks from the official Fortnite store with stolen credit/debit card information and then selling them at a discount to other gamers on the dark web or on social media sites. 

Similarly, another financial crimes report also stated that cyber-criminal groups had automated the use of stolen card details to create a large number of fake Apple IDs, in order to purchase in-game items in mobile games like Clash of Clans or Marvel Contest of Champions, and resold them for fiat currency on third-party websites.

In essence, purchasing in-game products with stolen card information is no different than purchasing any actual or intangible goods online with stolen card information. The payment processing company bears the major obligation for spotting this illicit behavior. However, the gaming firm may have important information about the criminal’s in-game behaviors, such as interactions with other players, which could lead to their exposure to criminal networks.