Being John Malkovich In Digital Casino Business

November 2022, 29

Gambling is one of the industries which is highly affected by hackers. Casinos use a great number of technologies in their work, including mobile app creation, social media promotions, and payment services. So, these integrations become a target for realizing scammers’ schemes. Their attacks can paralyze the iGaming website for days or weeks or even lead to the entrepreneur's bankruptcy.
But there are also many cyber security tricks to minimize risks and make your business invulnerable to digital crimes. We’ve prepared some useful information on why an online casino can become a green light for fraud and how to protect yourself from hackers in 2022. With these tips, you will give criminals a good fight, defending an establishment and your customers.

Why John Malkovich?

Today's online gambling and sports betting industry suffer from cyberattacks 167% more then the last year. The number of hackers willing to access casino data can be compared to a zombie invasion. And iGaming operators, like John Malkovich in a new video game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, face the task they can’t get around. So the only right decision is to fight fraudsters, like virtual walking deads, to save their own lives, meaning gaming business welfare.
Casinos have been a target for scammers since their land-based appearance. It was natural for gambling establishments to be robbed here and there, especially when little attention had been paid to security issues. Risks remain the same with the increase of online games popularity, although the landscape has changed, and now we are more confident in ways to protect a business from hackers. Instead of forced heists and cheap switchings, fraudsters developed DDoS attacks, personal account breaks, and other illegitimate methods.
Casino owners should be more proactive and invest in strengthening their cybersecurity and data privacy levels because criminals can harm a business in thousands of ways. One of the primary risks for providers is hacking. Vulnerable websites are in danger because fraudsters can access the casino's financial data and customers' personal details as well as steal their money.
Even if operators can pay clients damages, casino cyberattacks bring a more significant risk for enterprises. They can potentially destroy a trusted brand. You won't build loyal and reliable relationships if customers don’t feel safe while interacting with a casino. They will hardly deposit money in brands that don’t know how to prevent hackers from stealing information.
Moreover, clients want to ensure they are engaged in fair games. If there is a little chance scammer could interrupt their stakes and influence the outcome, you’ll probably lose the majority of leads.
That’s why operators should take risks seriously and provide gambling and cybersecurity events timely. Hackers' tricks and approaches to avoid them are constantly changing. So it’s crucial to ensure you obtain a solid defense and regularly test your hacker protection software. But before becoming John Malkovich for your company, let’s figure out what website bottlenecks are attractive for scammers, like fresh brains for zombies.

Causes of frequent cyber attacks

According to Akamai’s recent research, the harmful impact of cyberattacks on casinos increased almost twice during the last year. The more gamblers came online, the more attractive their catching was for easy money lovers. It resulted in selling players’ accounts and stealing personal data, such as credit card info.
While the reasons for hackers’ activity differed from time to time, three vital factors mainly caused weaknesses in the cyber security of a casino.

Lack of security support

A small number of people know how to keep their personal information safe. Take the casino accounts' passwords. Around 23 million online players used simple combinations for their gaming profiles, like “123456.” And almost 71% of individuals picked up the same code on multiple websites.
If the operator doesn’t provide limits on the password complexity and length, users don’t pay much attention to this issue. However, such an approach is one of the methods for strengthening online gambling cyber security.

Platform vulnerability

When scammers find out your online casino has weak sides, they may try to pounce on it, causing a temporary website block or completely ruining the security system. If your site operates using HTTP instead of HTTPS, doesn’t provide SSL encryption and two-factor customer verification, and ignores cyberattack prevention software audit and its updating, you may be in a danger zone like in John Malkovich games.

Underestimation of risks

Some casino owners think there are no preconditions for their platforms to face any type of cyber attack. But that’s a profound delusion. If it hasn’t happened before, it doesn’t necessarily mean it wouldn’t; mainly if entrepreneur efforts are directed at traffic growth issues instead of “how to deal with hackers.”
Additionally, the more clients your company has, the more attractive it becomes to examine casino cybersecurity for fraudsters. So you should learn more about attack types and the basic preventive measures you can provide. Therefore, we dedicate our next chapter to this important issue.

Ways to protect yourself from hackers

Knowledge is power. If casino operators learn more cyber attack prevention tips to combat scammers, they could build a reliable gaming system and gain an excellent reputation among online players. Making security tasks a part of constant investments can save you big money in the future and establish a trustworthy brand name. So let’s get familiar with a few steps you can provide right now.

Data Encryption

Use HTTPS, SSL, and End-to-End encryption for your website to prevent cyberattacks on business. Thus, you'll ensure all the personal data customers enter during registration is saved on the dedicated server as a complex code. Even if someone accesses the database, they won’t use the information without a decryption key.

Reliable software

Buying games or developing white-label solutions from trustworthy providers is essential for casino cyber security. They will guarantee high-quality products safe for your platform and customers. Don’t underestimate the role of regular updates. Oftentimes scammers rely on bottlenecks existing in old program versions, which may be already fixed by manufacturers in the new one. Thus, the WannaCry ransomware attack caused $4 billion in losses for different companies. But the sum could be much lower if entrepreneurs had updated their systems because scammers used an old exploit, already patched in new versions of Microsoft Windows.

Training staff

There is nothing better than educating employees when it comes to phishing attacks. Your online casino security team will learn to recognize and prevent hacking attempts. Moreover, they will monitor the internal website environment: watch clients' behavior, ban cheaters and offenders, and create blacklists with unfaithful players.

Using secure technology

It is one of the best ways to protect digital iGaming platforms. Scammers modify their approaches in penetrating gambling websites, and the companies from the cyber security gambling industry regularly update their products, adding new countermeasures.

Such services as Cloudflare can prevent DDoS attacks on your website. Databases vulnerable to SQL Injections will be saved with encryption. And a well-known CAPTCHA will reject the spam flow.

Conducting tests

It is one of the most expensive and radical methods to ensure cyber security in casinos. An auditing company can simulate hackers’ attacks on your website. They use the same approaches as scammers and then give an owner a report, including platform bottlenecks and suggestions for strengthening the defense.

When you have provided the latest cyber attack prevention measures but still can’t guarantee casino reliability to your visitors, then getting an eCORGA seal will put an endpoint in your platform security issue. This regulator audits gambling sites and awards certificates if brands meet high standards in data storage, provide games with fair RNG and act responsibly in general.

Conclusion

Cybersecurity is one of the crucial issues in the casino industry which you should obtain to succeed in the digital business. Minimizing the risks of hacking attacks will help entrepreneurs survive in the iGaming market and gain a reputation as a reliable brand. Customers will more likely interact with a website that ensures fair gaming, personal data, and financial safety. Predicting online crimes is no one-time effort but a continuous battle for operators. As scammers regularly come up with new schemes to interrupt your business functioning, providing cybersecurity education and integrating innovative technologies should become a priority for iGaming entrepreneurs.