Online Gaming Crime and Security Issue - Cases and Countermeasures from Taiwan

Along with the growth of information technology, online gaming has become a very successful and outstanding industry, especially in Asia. However due to the lack of legal regulation, security protection, privacy protection and related legislation, more and more players (mostly in the age range of 15-20) have violated the law. A fair number of arrests and prosecutions have occurred related to this. Online gaming is designed for entertainment. However, the cyber-criminal activity arising from online games is increasing at an alarming rate. The numbers of thefts, frauds, robberies, counterfeited documents, vandalisms, threats and illegal gambling cases from online gaming have increased to 1300 cases from 55 only 2 years earlier in Taiwan. In fact, some of these cases involved school dropouts who formed malicious gangs to boost their criminal activity. In other words, online gaming contributes to the increasing number of cyber-crimes, to such an extent that it is the number one cyber-criminal activity in Taiwan (in terms of convictions). More recently, all types of network-related crimes have increased rapidly. As well, the average age of players has decreased. The main objective of our research was to find a way to solve these problems.