Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Security
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

No security reprieve from Blizzard's Warden

Two good reasons to pass on MMORPGs in the office

May 13, 2007 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld -

World of Warcraft (WoW) and other massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) are the source of recent rumbling in the industry. The online gaming numbers are staggering, but the notion that a significant percentage of people is logging in from work is truly the stuff of executive nightmares.

The impact from lost work hours and the legality of alternate-currency businesses or "gold pharming" are worthy of discussion, but the alarm is a bit misplaced. Games have been a staple of computer workers' existence since J. Martin Graetz, Alan Kotok and others cooked up Spacewar! on a PDP-1 in 1961, and people have been exchanging virtual identities and goods for real money since the first multiuser dungeons (MUD) in the '80's.

Such games will always be with us, and the further up the knowledge-worker ladder one goes, the seemingly more essential their importance for blowing off steam. Modern role-playing games aren't my thing, but I'd much rather see a senior security officer ganking Blood Elves in a cathartic frenzy for 30 minutes on company time than losing her cool when cornered by a tightly wound executive in some postincident blamestorming session.

Yet there is a serious problem with gaming on the corporate network -- in fact, there are two. It's not with the games themselves and the effect of their use, but with software installation on an organization's computers by unauthorized individuals and the inclusion in that software of monitoring and self-help components. The former leads to all sorts of compliance issues. The latter leads to real risks of information disclosure and creation of new attack surfaces.

Monitoring and reporting

The Warden is not new in concept or execution. In response to widespread cheating on multiplayer online games, Blizzard Entertainment developed routines for detecting game cheats, eventually coalescing them into a distinct software component known as the Warden. The Warden is included with WoW, Diablo II and other Blizzard games.

When active, the Warden monitors program and process activity on the host computer, and it sends usage data and some desktop information (known to include at least the header of each open window) back to Blizzard's servers over the Internet. Blizzard says the Warden does not gather any personally identifiable information -- only data about the game account -- and only examines the gathered data for evidence of hack or cheat programs.

A representative of a WoW guild (a structured group of thematic players) told the BBC that many of its members support Blizzard's efforts to quash game cheats. "The concern most have is that the program has the capability to read text from open programs, potentially compromising the privacy of some sensitive programs. If someone is afraid of the program reading sensitive information from their programs, one possible solution is simply to not run any additional programs while playing World of Warcraft."



Jump to comments

world of warcraft

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER
Approximately 60 percent of data migration projects overrun time or budget, while some fail completely. Download this white paper, "Enhancing Your Chance for Successful Data Migration," to learn the critical steps you need to take to execute a data migration project with minimum cost and risk to your business.
WHITE PAPER
Read the Gartner research note to learn why the TCO of a server-based computing deployment used to deliver all applications to users is around 50% lower than that of an unmanaged desktop deployment.
WHITE PAPER
Economic downturns have a tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions, and punish solutions that are not cost competitive or that are out of synch with industry trends. This IDC White Paper presents the results of an IDC survey of 330 companies in Western Europe, Asia/Pacific and the Americas that measures the receptiveness to Linux and takes into consideration changing views driven by the disruptive economic environment that businesses face today.

What People Are Saying

White Papers & Webcasts

Share our Strength
Download Now  

Managing Secure File Transfer to Save Time, Money and IT Resources
Learn how companies are using innovative technology to overcome these challenges and improve user productivity by offloading e-mail attachments and replacing FTP with...

Security Convergence Equals Network Security Cost Savings
Listen to IBM Internet Security Systems' take on network security convergence.

Disaster Recovery 2008: Reduced Costs and Improved Performance
How long can your Enterprise afford to be without your data? With an accelerated disaster recovery program, you never have to answer this...