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About the Project

The OWASP Game Security Framework (GSF) represents a modular approach to understanding the security issues that surround video game ecosystems.
In 2016 the videogame market became 99.6 Billion dollar industry... any why shouldn't it be? Some of the most prolific and complex software developed today are video games. They are professionally played, sponsored, scrutinized, monetized, and celebrated, just like many sports. They handle clients, servers, web components, monetary transfers, social interactions, virtual markets, etc, with every bit the need of security that most internet hosted apps have (if not more in some cases). The GSF is designed to help threat model gaming issues that have devastated new games. Most importantly we hope the GSF can help new developers and security testers alike root out bugs in your favorite titles.
The framework is broken into three main concepts / sections:
1. Identifying and clustering the components of risk within the overall game security space, and then giving instances of each component.
Components include the following:
- Attack Surfaces: the various surface areas that can be attacked by attackers in order to cause harm to the gaming ecosystem.
- Vulnerabilities: the specific weaknesses in design or implementation that allows attackers to successfully target a given game.
- Attacker Goals: a list of the reasons that an attacker might want to attack a given game.
- Negative Outcomes: a collection of ways that the gaming company could ultimately be impacted negatively by attacks to its game and associated infrastructure.
2. A natural language semantic structure for thinking about and articulating game security issues, which uses the modular risk components as sentence structure.
Example:
- "The attacker attacked and edited the
LOCAL GAME CLIENT (Attack Surface)
, which had a LACK OF CLIENT INTEGRITY CONTROLS (Vulnerability)
, which allowed her to ARTIFICIALLY INCREASE HER ABILITIES (Attacker Goal)
, ultimately leading to an UNHAPPY PLAYER BASE (Negative Outcome)
and DECLINING GAME REVENUE (Negative Outcome)
, which could have been prevented by DEFENSE.
”
Using this structure, security testers can clearly communicate the various aspects of a game security issue to many different types of stakeholder—from pentesting peers to business executives in the gaming industry.
3. Examples of real-world examples of previous attacks against games, and how the attacks map to the GSF framework components.
Licensing
The OWASP Game Security Framework is free to use. It is licensed under the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license], so you can copy, distribute and transmit the work, and you can adapt it, and use it commercially, but all provided that you attribute the work and if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
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What is the OWASP Game Security Framework?
The goal of the OWASP Game Security Framework is to provide a structure for discussing the various aspects around the security of video games.
The goal of the OWASP Game Security Framework is to provide a structure for discussing the various aspects around the security of video games.
The target audience for the project includes:
The target audience for the project includes:
- Gamers
- Gamers
- QA
- QA
- Game designers
- Game designers
- Penetration testers
- Penetration testers
- Gaming executives
- Gaming executives
- Anyone else with a vested interest in game security
- Anyone else with a vested interest in game security
Project Leaders
Project Leaders
- Jason Haddix
- Jason Haddix
- Daniel Miessler
- Daniel Miessler
Contributors
Contributors
- Kevin Hemmingsen
- Kevin Hemmingsen
- Troy Cunefare
- Troy Cunefare
- Ryan Lawrence
- Ryan Lawrence
- Martin Mendoza
- Martin Mendoza
- Koray Algan
- Koray Algan
- Tom Simkovic
- Tom Simkovic
- Matt Espinoza
- Matt Espinoza
- Chad Lynch
- Chad Lynch
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The Slack Channel
Quick Download
COMING SOON
News and Events
- January, 2017: Doing a complete redesign of the project.
- March 2017: Presenting version 1.0 at HouSecCon 2017.
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Attack Surfaces

The following is a list of the attack surfaces that can be found in video games of various types.
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This section provides an overview of the various places an attacker can target to harm a given game infrastructure.
Sub-project Leader
Collaboration
The Slack Channel
Quick Download
News and Events
</td>
Vulnerabilities

The following is a list of the vulnerabilities that can be found in video games of various types, and the attack surfaces they're likely to be associated with.
Ability to edit in-game resources
Ability to bypass license requirement
</ul></td>
Network Denial of Service (player)
- Player bandwidth exhaustion
- Player game client resource exhaustion
</ul></td>
Application Level Denial of Service (Player)
- Player application logic Denial of Service
</ul></td>
Application Level Denial of Service (Server)
- Server application logic Denial of Service
Ability to modify game ladder rankings
Ability to modify own player resources
</ul></td>
Ability to generate unlimited money on client side
Ability to generate unlimited money through network/application traffic modification
Ability to modify prices for in-game items
Ability to replay financial actions such as buying or selling through network/application manipulation
</ul></td>
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The Security Vulnerabilities Project provides information on what types of vulnerabilities exist within games, and which attack surfaces they fall under.
Sub-project Leader
Collaboration
The Slack Channel
Resources
News and Events
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Exploits

This list refers to what a given attacker might use to take advantage of a given bug within the game.
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The Exploits provides information on what types of tools and techniques an attacker might use to accomplish his/her goal.
Sub-project Leader
Collaboration
The Slack Channel
Resources
News and Events
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Attacker Goals

This list refers to what a given attacker might be trying to accomplish within the game by performing a given attack. This could relate very closely (or not) with the technical impact or business impact cause by the behavior.
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The Attacker Goals Project provides information on what types of outcomes attackers might try to achieve within or outside of the game they're attacking.
Sub-project Leader
Collaboration
The Slack Channel
Resources
News and Events
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Negative Outcomes

The following is a list of possible negative outcomes that can occur as the result of someone successfully attacking a given game.
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The Negative Outcomes Project provides information on what types of situations could manifest within the game if bugs or exploits are not successfully addressed.
Project Leader
Collaboration
The Slack Channel
Resources
News and Events
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Defenses

These are some of the common defenses that can be used to counter attacks against various components of a game.
</td>
The Security Vulnerabilities Project provides information on what types of vulnerabilities exist within games, and which attack surfaces they fall under.
Project Leaders
Collaboration
The Slack Channel
Resources
News and Events
</td>
Examples
Real-world Examples of Gaming Vulnerabilities
Vulnerability
ID |
Vulnerabilty Name |
Description |
Surface Area |
Goal |
Techical Impact |
Business Impact |
Defense |
Ref |
Game |
Genre |
V1 |
Local Resource Modification, Client-side Logic Flaw |
In 2015 The Division experienced an exploit that allowed an attacker to switch weapons rapidly, applying weapon buffs in a stacking manner, with no cap. |
Game Client |
Unfair Player Advantage |
Player Anger |
Players leave, Lost Revenue |
Cryptographic Integrity Checks on Game Client |
http://www.gamesradar.com/theres-a-division-damage-stacking-glitch-if-youve-got-fast-fingers/ |
|
3PS/1PS/MMO |
VN1 |
“The attacker attacked and edited the LOCAL GAME CLIENT (Attack Surface) , which had a LACK OF CLIENT INTEGRITY CONTROLS (Vulnerability) , which allowed her to ARTIFICIALLY INCREASE HER ABILITIES (Attacker Goal) , ultimately leading to an UNHAPPY PLAYER BASE (Negative Outcome) and DECLINING GAME REVENUE (Negative Outcome) due to cheating, which could have been prevented by CRYPTOGRAPHIC INTEGRITY CHECKS ON GAME CLIENT ” |
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Working Data Collection Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Og08wyHsqtODBDkU_M2zHAvdxc63GSu-OmT8NjCc9Ak/edit#gid=0
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We are actively looking for people to help in the following areas:
- Improving the framework schema, e.g., vulns, attack surfaces,
technical impacts, business impacts, defenses, etc.
- Adding content to any of the various sections
- Input from avid gamers on how useful this is to them
- Input from app security experts
- Input from security types working at gaming companies
- Input from game company business types
If you have interest in helping, reach out to us and we’ll make you a
contributor.
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