Current Gaming Security Topics (part 6, End to End Security)

Ok, the plane is getting close to landing and I've typed a ton of blogs (I'll schedule them to post over the next 2 days). This is my last one before hitting the show floor.


Antivirus, Secure Socket Layers, Authentication, Encryption, Memory dumps and so many more problems and technologies to combat them. It's an interesting time in the Security market, authentication companies are being gobbled up by the bigger Security giants out there. As these markets collide we start to see new requests from our customers, "End to End Security". Generally this is the ability to string all of the different security programs and needs together into one package. There are certainly some benefits to this but there can be some pitfalls too.
The benefits are that as an end user I can have a one stop shop for all their perceived security needs. Tokens with Antivirus and Certificates on them. It sounds great. I'd probably look at it, but in the end I'm probably going to go with separate providers.


Hmm as I am writing this I'm trying to figure out my point and how it relates to the online gaming space.


The main thing for me is that I don't want all my eggs in one basket. But do our players really care? As I mentioned in my children security post, I'm pretty sure my kids would go on and play games even if they had to get everything from one provider. I'm also pretty sure that if the technology made it any harder for them (such as having to install software or requiring admin access for it) they would simply move on to the next game. I'm pretty sure this is what we would see from all demographics too. So what does End to End security get us?
I think End to End security is till too new to figure out if our users are ready for it. Our games are trying to have less hurdles to being played and by implementing End to End security we might be defeating ourselves. It still seems like the holy grail, but I think I need to sit back and watch it evolve a bit more before I make any major comments on it.