"There were Sacrifices to reach that Deadline": Security Challenges in Game Development

Security knowledge is power! In today's game development processes, providers and developers must consider factors beyond game functionality to encompass availability, authentication, monetization, and data protection, emphasizing the critical need for robust security and privacy measures. However, the games industry is notoriously plagued by security incidents and a lack of knowledge on how to deal with them. In this talk, we will draw on our scientific publications and wider security research findings to provide insights into the key areas of the industry that are particularly relevant to security, analyze security incidents and provide actionable recommendations on how security can be improved in the future by linking knowledge from research to the game development industry. We want to uncover where security knowledge exists in the industry (and where it doesn't) to sensitize every developer, QA professional, security analyst, manager and publisher of video games to the importance of security and empower everyone to develop secure video games and environments and spread this knowledge.