Exploiting Online Games Cheating Massively Distributed Systems

by Hoglund, Greg; McGraw, Gary R.

• ISBN13: 9780132271912
• ISBN10: 0132271915
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-07-09
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Summary

"Imagine trying to play defense in football without ever studying offense. You would not know when a run was coming, how to defend pass patterns, nor when to blitz. In computer systems, as in football, a defender must be able to think like an attacker. I say it in my class every semester, you don't want to be the last person to attack your own system--you should be the first. "The world is quickly going online. While I caution against online voting, it is clear that online gaming is taking the Internet by storm. In our new age where virtual items carry real dollar value, and fortunes are won and lost over items that do not really exist, the new threats to the intrepid gamer are all too real. To protect against these hazards, you must understand them, and this groundbreaking book is the only comprehensive source of information on how to exploit computer games. Every White Hat should read it. It's their only hope of staying only one step behind the bad guys." --Aviel D. Rubin, Ph.D. Professor, Computer Science Technical Director, Information Security Institute Johns Hopkins University "Everyone's talking about virtual worlds. But no one's talking about virtual-world security. Greg Hoglund and Gary McGraw are the perfect pair to show just how vulnerable these online games can be." --Cade Metz Senior Editor PC Magazine "If we're going to improve our security practices, frank discussions like the ones in this book are the only way forward. Or as the authors of this book might say, when you're facing off against Heinous Demons of Insecurity, you need experienced companions, not to mention a Vorpal Sword of Security Knowledge." --Edward W. Felten, Ph.D. Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs Director, Center for Information Technology Policy Princeton University "Historically, games have been used by warfighters to develop new capabilities and to hone existing skills--especially in the Air Force. The authors turn this simple concept on itself, making games themselves the subject and target of the 'hacking game,'and along the way creating a masterly publication that is as meaningful to the gamer as it is to the serious security system professional. "Massively distributed systems will define the software field of play for at least the next quarter century. Understanding how they work is important, but understanding how they can be manipulated is essential for the security professional. This book provides the cornerstone for that knowledge." --Daniel McGarvey Chief, Information Protection Directorate United States Air Force "Like a lot of kids, Gary and I came to computing (and later to computer security) through games. At first, we were fascinated with playing games on our Apple ][s, but then became bored with the few games we could afford. We tried copying each other's games, but ran up against copy-protection schemes. So we set out to understand those schemes and how they could be defeated. Pretty quickly, we realized that it was a lot more fun to disassemble and work around the protections in a game than it was to play it. "With the thriving economies of today's online games, people not only have the classic hacker's motivation to understand and bypass the security of games, but also the criminal motivation of cold, hard cash. That's a combination that's hard to stop. The first step, taken by this book, is revealing the techniques that are being used today." --Greg Morrisett, Ph.D. Allen B. Cutting Professor of Computer Science School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University "If you're playing online games today and you don't understand security, you're at a real disadvantage. If you're designing the massive distributed sy

Author Biography

Greg Hoglund has been involved with software security for many years, specializing in Windows rootkits and vulnerability exploitation. He founded the website www.rootkit.com, and has coauthored several books on software security (Exploiting Software: How to Break Code and Rootkits: Subverting the Windows Kernel, both from Addison-Wesley). Greg is a long-time game hacker and spends much of his free time reverse engineering and tooling exploits for new games. Professionally, Greg offers in-depth training on rootkit development and software exploits. He is currently CEO of HBGary, Inc. (www.hbgary.com), building a world-class product for software reverse engineering and digital forensics.

Gary McGraw is the CTO of Cigital, Inc., a software security and quality consulting firm with headquarters in the Washington, D.C., area. He is a globally recognized authority on software security and the author of six best-selling books on this topic. The latest, Software Security: Building Security In, was released in 2006. His other titles include Java Security (Wiley), Building Secure Software (Addison-Wesley), and Exploiting Software (Addison-Wesley). He is the editor of the Addison-Wesley Software Security Series. Dr. McGraw has also written more than 90 peer-reviewed scientific publications, writes a monthly security column for darkreading.com, and is frequently quoted in the press. Besides serving as a strategic counselor for top business and IT executives, Gary is on the advisory boards of Fortify Software and Raven White. His dual Ph.D. is in cognitive science and computer science from Indiana University where he serves on the Dean's Advisory Council for the School of Informatics. Gary is an IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors member and produces the monthly Silver Bullet Security Podcast for IEEE Security & Privacy magazine.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Why Games

Game Hacking 101

Money

Enter the Lawyers

Infested with Bugs

Hacking Game Clients

Building a Bots

Reversing

Advanced Game Hacking Fu

Software Security Uber Alles

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Online games, including World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Second Life, and online poker, have taken the computer world by storm. Gaming has always been (and remains) among the prime drivers of PC technology, with deep penetration into the consumer market. In the last ten years, computer games have grown just as quickly as the Internet and can now be found in tens of millions of homes. The Internet is experiencing plenty of adolescent growing pains along with its phenomenal growth. These pains are experienced mostly in terms of problematic and pervasive computer security issues. Online games, especially massively multiplayer online role-playing games (or MMORPGs for short), suffer from these security problems directly. MMORPGs are made of very sophisticated software built around a massively distributed client-server architecture. Because these games push the limits of software technology, especially when it comes to state and time (not to mention the real-time interaction of hundreds of thousands of users), they are particularly interesting as a case study in software security. In fact, MMORPGs are a harbinger of technical software security issues to come. Modern software of all kinds (not just game software) is evolving to be massively distributed, with servers interacting with and providing services for thousands of users at once. The move to Web Services and Service Oriented Architectures built using technologies like AJAX and Ruby follows hard on the heels of online games. What we learn here today is bound to be widely applicable tomorrow in every kind of software. Adding to the urgency of the security problem is the fact that online games are big business. The most popular MMORPG in the world, World of Warcraft by Blizzard Entertainment, has over 8 million users, each of whom pay $14 per month for the privilege of playing. Analysts estimate the gaming market will reach $12 billion by 2009. Inside the virtual worlds created by MMORPGs, simple data structures come to have value, mostly a reflection of the time gamers spend playing the game. Players accumulate and trade virtual wealth (or play money). Many of these virtual economies have per capita GDPs greater than most small nations. Not surprisingly, direct connections between the virtual economies of games and the real economy exist all over the place. Until recently, it was possible to buy in-game play money with real dollars on eBay; now many other well-developed middle markets exist. And the reverse is possible, too. This has led to the emergence of a class of players more interested in wringing virtual wealth out of the game than playing the game itself. Wherever money is at stake, criminals gather and linger. Cheating happens. In the case of MMORPGs, cheaters have real economic incentive to break the security of the game in order to accumulate virtual items and experience points for their characters. Many of these items and even the characters themselves are then sold off to the highest bidder. Sophisticated hackers have been working the fertile fields of MMORPGs for years, some of them making a living directly from gaming (or cheating at gaming). This book describes explicitly and in a technical way the kinds of attacks and techniques used by hackers who target games. Why Are We Doing This? As you can imagine, game companies take a dim view of cheating in their games. If cheating becomes rampant in a game, unsatisfied noncheating players will simply move on to another. Game developers have taken a number of steps to improve security in their games, some of them controversial (monitoring game players' PCs behind the scenes), others legalistic (imposing strict software license agreements and terms of use), and some of them trivial to break (using symmetric cryptography but including the secret key in the game client code). Our hope is that by understanding the kinds of attacks and hacking techniques described in this bo