Leading German Digital Gaming Platform Stops Fake Account Creation and Pilferage with Radware Bot Manager
As the online gaming industry steadily grows (overtaking the global film industry in revenue a few years ago), so do the types of bot attacks plaguing them in ever-increasing numbers. Though bots have long been used in online gaming to help users get advantages during gameplay to leapfrog over other players, gaming companies have become very good at detecting players who use bots to gain an unfair advantage. On the other hand, gaming websites and applications themselves are susceptible to bot attacks that help fraudsters and nefarious actors carry out various types of attacks outside the digital gaming arena. These include the creation of fake accounts, account takeover (ATO), theft of stored funds in wallets, rewards earned by users, and the collection of personal data to facilitate or execute other types of cybercrimes.
Bad Bots Game the System at the Expense of Gamers
In 2021, a leading online gaming and marketing platform from Germany with over 4.5 million registered global customers, approached Radware because its website and mobile application were being attacked by large numbers of bots. Its rapidly growing, highly engaged user base helped this platform become a curator, launchpad and distribution partner for some of the most popular digital games. It also became a hub for exclusive game launches and offers from over 250 partners, including sales, tournaments, group chats, reviews, and more. Its growing success and popularity made it a big target for bot attacks that harmed its business and brand, caused problems with the user experience and strained its infrastructure because it had to defend against the attacks.
To ensure continued growth and user loyalty, the gaming company implemented Radware Bot Manager to protect its infrastructure and users from bad bots deployed by fraudsters to create fake accounts and systematically scrape and pilfer digital scratch cards on its website and mobile application. The fraudsters would then resell the prizes and discount codes obtained by their bots for a profit, which deprived legitimate users of having a chance to earn rewards and win scratch cards. Had these bot attacks persisted any longer, they certainly had the potential to significantly harm the gaming portal’s user trust and engagement. Moreover, without bot protection, targets such as this usually invite a wider range of malicious bot attacks that cascade into major brand and revenue damage.
Before implementing Radware Bot Manager, the gaming company had initially tried blacklisting known bad bot origins and IP addresses. However, that was a very tedious — and ultimately futile — defense strategy against the sophisticated evasion tactics used by fraudsters. Radware specialists helped integrate Bot Manager using our CDN (content delivery network) connector, which protected the gaming website and its mobile application. Almost immediately, the massive bad bot volumes that constantly attacked the portal diminished and no longer posed a threat to the company’s business and reputation.
In addition to eliminating the creation of fake accounts and the pilfering of scratch cards, the gaming company was also able to crack down on fraudulent purchases of games, improve the user experience for genuine gamers, reduce infrastructure costs and network load, and obtain accurate traffic data and KPIs to optimize growth strategies.
Now Read the Full Case Study
Click HERE to read the full case study: German Digital Gaming Platform Stops Fake Account Creation. It goes into more detail about how the gaming company continues to enjoy an excellent ROI with Radware Bot Manager. It proved to be the perfect solution to protect against malicious bots that hurt its reputation and brand, while also impacting customer engagement and the user experience.
Click HERE to get more information about Radware Bot Manager and how it keeps organizations secure and safe from cyberattacks. If you’d like to speak with a Radware cybersecurity professional and better understand how to protect your applications and infrastructure, reach out to us HERE. We’d love to hear from you.
