How Cybersecurity is Evolving in the iGaming Industry: AI, Biometrics, and Encryption

How Cybersecurity is Evolving in the iGaming Industry

By 2030, the iGaming industry is expected to reach $1.4 trillion in value, and that is a conservative figure. It is fair that the industry is on the rise, thanks to more relaxed legislation, better games, and more people enjoying the idea of gambling.

Of course, iGaming is not without its challenges. With a market worth this much, cybersecurity is a massive issue. Cash needs to be protected, games need to be kept random, and players want to know their accounts are safe.

This is why such platforms are working hard to develop proper cybersecurity. When nearly 48% of businesses are at risk of being targeted within the next year, protection is an absolute must.

On this page you’ll learn:

• Why iGaming platforms are constantly evolving their cybersecurity protections.
• How AI and machine learning are helping.
• Biometric security
• Better end-to-end encryption
• Player education 

Systems are Constantly Developing

As Warren Buffett once said, ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it’. This rings true for all industries, including the iGaming business.

Betting platforms understand that they always need to be working on developing proper security systems. As cyberthreats evolve, iGaming platforms need to evolve too. If they don’t, years and years of decent reputation can be flushed down the drain. Nobody wants to gamble at a platform that has been hacked.

You should also remember a quote from Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft – “It’s not enough to protect your data; you need to protect your customers’ data too”.

iGaming platforms are not there just to protect all their financial information. They’re there to protect their customers just as much. After all, it is the customers that give them cash.

Biometric Security 

Major betting websites and platforms are starting to move toward biometric security to help protect bettors. While no website or game has eliminated traditional passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA), we wouldn’t be surprised if it happened over the next decade or so. People will need much better equipment for biometrics first, though.

Biometric logins let people login using facial recognition, or their fingerprints. This is tough to fake, which can properly protect accounts. 

End-to-End Encryption

A major focus in cybersecurity today is protecting users from data snooping. This doesn’t usually involve servers being hacked directly, but rather bad actors trying to intercept data sent and received by players. To stay ahead of this, iGaming platforms have taken strong steps to ensure all data is encrypted from end to end. For example, when betting with paytm in Pakistan, as noted by the experts at MightyTips, all payment information is fully encrypted — giving users confidence that their details are safe, secure, and protected from prying eyes.

Standard encryption remains incredibly strong and is virtually impossible to break through conventional means. While, in theory, brute-force methods could crack it, the effort and resources required make it impractical and not worth the attempt. The exciting news is that encryption is evolving. Some forward-thinking cybersecurity companies are already exploring quantum encryption — a cutting-edge approach that promises to be unbreakable.

Player Education

The FBI suggests that most cybersecurity incidents are not down to threats to iGaming servers, but due to the customer not being properly educated. This can mean:

• Players are more likely to be victims of phishing, where they’ll willingly give away their password.
• Malware and viruses run rampant on a person’s computer, allowing people to easily snoop on data.
• Customers connect to public wi-fi, which is often unprotected.

iGaming platforms have invested heavily in player education about cybersecurity threats, because this is known to reduce the risk of issues. It is ‘back to basics’, we know. However, it is surprising at how much a back-to-basics approach has really helped to evolve cybersecurity in iGaming.

AI and Machine Learning

Finally,betting companies are starting to consider the use of AI and machine learning as a method to spot potential cybersecurity threats. Ones that may have gone under the radar otherwise.

Again, the technology is still in its infancy. However, AI and machine learning is now being used extensively in the cybersecurity business. The idea is that AI and machine learning can identify how players are behaving, or at least how users on the website are behaving.

The technology can then identify whether something untoward is happening. For example, if somebody isn’t using a betting website in the way it is expected they would be using it. It will then flag these issues for further analysis from staff. The hope is that smaller threats can then be spotted long before they become a problem.

Due to the amount of cash in the iGaming industry, we wouldn’t be surprised if it were the iGaming businesses that first pioneer this technology.

Final Thoughts

There’s a lot of money in the iGaming business, and this means it is often the target of many cybersecurity threats. iGaming platforms are constantly investing in tech to combat threats. This includes end-to-end encryption (soon quantum encryption) and AI & machine learning. They always need to stay one step behind the hackers because, if they don’t, an iGaming business could have its reputation destroyed.