6 Most infected gaming-related websites of the Month

There is a direct correlation between ‘most wanted’, ‘most visited’, ‘most time spent’, ‘most money spent’ etc metrics and; the malware threat. The direct correlation is: When most gets appended to any metric for a web entity; it becoming a source of some malware threat also increases.

And there are obvious reasons to it.


Cyber criminals, who use these malwares (software codes designed to accomplish malevolent or evil actions) to play their game, are smart people, who put their time, expertise and money only on those web entities which show them the money.


Currently; right from the past one and a half years, gaming websites have become one of the most favorite investment destinations of cyber criminals.


Have a look at the following observations and numbers:

Monthly “Most Wanted“ lists are featuring gaming websites as consumers now spend more time playing games online than checking their email. According to, a recent Neilson study, Games are now a bigger attraction than emails. In June of this year, computer users spent more time playing games online (10.2%) than checking email (8.3%).

For the reasons and supporting observations and numbers discussed above, online gaming is bringing with it greater security risks; which is often compounded due to unsafe player behavior -- Gamers are particularly vulnerable due to their unsafe behavior such as turning off their antivirus protection for greater computer performance.

The online gaming market worldwide is an estimated $15 billion, and there are many different types of websites to assist the gamer, including tutorials, downloading sites and community forums. With everything scattered to such an extent and smart mobile devices hitting market every other day (bringing with them troves of developers building games for those devices) and web properties focusing on the social aspect of gaming, the size of online gaming market is bound to increase; so will increase the security threat.

AVAST Software, developers of the avast! antivirus program, which also provides satisfactory security to Home PCs for free, looks to raise awareness of this threat and warn consumers of recently infected gaming websites in its monthly “Most Wanted” list. Here I wish to make a point, with more and more proliferation of social aspect to online gaming; whether it be a gaming site incorporating social networking features or vice-versa; it can be safely assumed that people trying online gaming for the first time will start making for a sizeable chunk of gamers in coming months.

Following is a sampling of the month’s most infected gaming-related websites:

-- Gamefactoryinteractive.com
-- Games-digest.com
-- Mariogamesplay.com
-- anywhere-games.com
-- galacticflashgames.com
-- towerofdefense.com

(Don’t visit them out of curiosity; that’s why the sites are not linked)

In addition to the list, which will list dangerous gaming properties online, Avast has also four simple tips for Gamers or gaming enthusiast:

1. Don’t turn off your AV while playing online games. If you’re online, you are vulnerable.
2. Keep computer applications – including your antivirus program – fully updated.
3. Try the gaming function for uninterrupted concentration. avast! silent/gaming mode is designed to disable distracting pop-ups and other on-screen notifications without degrading security levels.
4. Beware of downloading games through warez sites. This is a known avenue for spreading malware.

Play safe ! --------

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