CFPB Report on Video Games Highlights Need for Strong Cybersecurity
Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a report on the economic dynamics emerging within video games. “Gaming assets flow in and out of gaming marketplaces in a variety of ways and can have immense value,” the agency writes. “To leverage that value, financial products and services have begun entering gaming in the form of payment processing, money transmission, and even loans.”
The CFPB worries that gamers – including children – face rising risks of fraud, hacks, and other financially motivated malfeasance. “A recent study from 10,000 gamers globally showed that 63 percent of respondents feel their accounts aren’t safe enough from attacks – with one in three reporting that their accounts had been hacked in the last two years,” the agency writes. Putting aside the dubious suggestion that the CFPB should assume regulatory power over video games, the report raises significant concerns regarding cybersecurity and financial fraud in gaming world.
The CFPB’s report highlights the importance of maintaining strong cybersecurity protections – particularly for children. As the App Security Project has argued, cybersecurity protections embedded into mobile devices’ app stores, payment platforms, and operating systems do much to protect users against malicious actors.
Outlawing system-level protections – as many in Congress wish to do – would only promote further fraud and other forms of digital lawlessness. Moreover, bills to this effect would fail to achieve their stated end of enhancing consumer choice. Many consumers – and parents, in particular – want to purchase devices whose closed systems provide better cybersecurity. Those who prefer open, less secure devices can, of course, adjust their purchasing habits accordingly. Ultimately, the choice ought to belong to the consumer.
In the digital world – as in the physical world – crime is a fact of life. Regulators shouldn’t outlaw the cybersecurity tools on which users rely to remain safe.
Published on May 3, 2024