Security Review: MMO Gaming
Most people in our society today are familiar with the concept of MMO gaming. World of Warcraft, for example, is something most everyone has heard of. Most MMO games operate under a fairly strict client/server paradigm. A company that desires to produce an MMO will create a client that handles the graphics processing, user input and output, and perhaps may store some basic per user settings, usually again related to display settings and interface options. The remainder of the game, including all user character data and user interaction with the online world, is stored and run on company controlled servers. This assists the company in its endeavor to give the users the experience they intended as well as control various types of cheating. In addition, users generally cannot play offline – this means that a given user must authenticate with the server in order to access a given character or play with others in the virtual world.