Online gamers have been described as a 'soft target' for cyber criminals in a new report published by the European Network and Information Security Agency.
The agency said that failure to protect real-money value locked up in this part of the economy has seen the level of online fraud increase this year. In fact, 2008 has seen the detection of more than 30,000 new malicious programs specifically designed to target accounts and property in online games and virtual worlds.
"While annual real-money sales of virtual goods is estimated at nearly €1.5bn worldwide, users can do very little if their virtual property is stolen. They are a very soft target for cybercriminals," warned Giles Hogben, editor of the report.
"There are one billion registered players of online games worldwide and the malware targeting them affects everyone with a computer connected to the internet."
