Cheating and Virtual Crime in Massively Multiplayer Online Games

Abstract

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) have become extremely popular since the birth of the Internet, with many millions of players playing games such as Poker and World of Warcraft. However, they do not seem to be well understood, and academic research into them has been limited. This project explains the nature of MMOG, and the relationship between MMOG and information security. This project discusses the problem of cheating in MMOG and it explains what cheating is, how it occurs, and how information security can be used to prevent it. The nature of virtual economies in MMOG is discussed, and the virtual crimes that have affected MMOG along with preventative measures are examined