For as long as there are rules to follow, there will always be someone who will try to go around them, or even break them. In that respect the game world isn't that much different from the real world. In a recent article, CNN takes a closer look at cheating in MMORPGs via the new book "Exploiting Online Games" by Gary McGraw and Greg Hoglund.

They observe that some online game companies seem to have accepted that cheating is an inevitable part gaming so instead of tightening security they just observe game play and look for anything suspicious. Some companies really crack down on cheating though.

Nexon America Inc., for instance, apply patches to remove every method of cheating they discover in their games. Others just actively boot cheaters from the game. The problem with this though is that most of the time they can just return with another identity.

One idea from Intel sounds promising. To prevent cheat commands coming in from a player's computer to the game's server, a chip will be embedded unto the PC itself. The chip will monitor if the PC sends commands that don't coincide with the rules of the game, like if a single mouse click sends a "fire 100 shots" command.

Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa on the other hand, says they've done all they can do to prevent cheating in the game. Starr Long, producer of Tabula Rasa, comments on cheating in MMORPGs:

In the old days we didn't really think through what would happen once we started letting people play together. Every single piece of content we put in the game, the first thing we say is 'Here's what we want this thing to do.' And the second thing we say is, 'OK, how are players going to try to exploit this?

Developers certainly don't benefit from cheating. What about the players? Hubert Thiebolt, who leads one of the largest teams in World of Warcraft says that cheating degrades the experience for everyone else. Perhaps measures for preventing cheating should start with the only ones who benefit from cheating.

The games World of Warcraft and EverQuest II are immensely popular, but it could be a potential security problem. Gary McGraw, the chief technology officer of Dulles,  brought up these issues in his book "Exploiting Online Games". In an interview conducted by SearchSecurity, McGraw clarified certain issues and the need for better security.

He stated that installing online games on the system actually install monitoring software deep in the kernel that keeps track of what is happening on that PC.The said software reports back various information about what the user is doing, information that may have nothing to do with the game itself.

He gave World of Warcraft as an example. It has a process called the Warden that keeps "an eye" on your PC. This was put in by Blizzard to prevent any cheating. It supposedly searches for familiar signatures of cheating tools as well as looks at the contents of any open windows while World of Warcraft is running. If all it does is prevent the exploits, then  all's well, but if it's doing something else as McGraw suggests, then players have a lot to worry about.

This problem is familiar to those encountered with rootkits, which McGraw also discussed. Some time ago, Sony decided to use rootkit technology on some of its CDs. When you insert the CD in your PC, it would install a rootkit down in the kernel that would block you from performing certain tasks like copying the CD. While this is all good in theory, there were times when the rootkit would actually block the user from doing other things like listening to music.

If MMORPGs today have been doing this, isn't it the user's right to know exactly what the program is doing to his system? Perhaps now would be a good time to check your systems to see if everything is in order. If you're interested in knowing more, you can check the full interview by clicking on the read link.