Following the commercial launch of its first office applications software WPS 1.0 in 1989, Kingsoft Corporation Limited has now become a leading entertainment and applications software developer, distributor and service provider in China. The Company leverages its comprehensive software development platform to offer a wide range of innovative entertainment and applications software. In October, 2007, Kingsoft was successfully listed on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong.

Kingsoft has several well-known products such as WPS Office, Kingsoft PowerWord, Kingsoft Internet Security, and online games such as the JX Series and The First Myth. In addition, the company sells various products such as Kingsoft Internet Security and Kingsoft PowerWord to retail consumers, corporate organizations and government agencies in China using online and offline distribution channels. Online games are one of the main product lines of Kingsoft. Thousands of game servers are deployed in Internet Data Centres (IDCs) in more than twenty provinces in China.

Challenge

Virtual monies and assets are vital for millions of game players worldwide.  Gamers literally spend hundreds of hours and also actual money (it is not uncommon for some gamers to spend a total of several million dollars to acquire magical and powerful virtual assets).  From a technology perspective, these powerful swords, gold coins, revitalization medicine, etc are just data and numbers in the database tables. However, in reality, they are equal to real money.

These virtual monies and assets are a temptation to not only external hackers but also internal employees as well. Failure to protect these virtual monies and assets will potentially incur costly and unnecessary lawsuits and loss of reputation to the company. The challenge the company faced is to ensure that these valuable assets and data are properly protected and managed and to prevent abuse and theft. Also, in the unfortunate event of fraud, the company must be able to proceed with forensic investigation leading to the understanding of the weakness of the system and loopholes exploited by the hackers. Through these, loopholes can be plug. System and policies can be reviewed and strengthened to prevent future occurrences.

Solution

On April 2008, BMST received a call from the security team in Kingsoft requesting an “emergency” test drive of Session Auditor. One week after the test drive, they made a decision to purchase and deploy the product. Thereafter, additional Session Auditor products have been deployed into critical segments of the network to monitor and audit internal critical operations.

Benefits

The investment made achieve significant impact and benefits on virtual money and asset protection.

On March 2009, there was news pertaining to a case of insider criminal activity related to Kingsoft. A former employee of Kingsoft was accused of helping two other accomplices to tamper and sell the online virtual money that was worth approximately 7 millions RMB, of which 3 million was traded on Taobao.com (Leading B2C e-commerce website of China). Finally, the three accused were arrested and found guilty on May 2008.

In this example, Kingsoft internal IT team, with the help of Session Auditor, develop a strong defence and deterrence against internal fraud and abuses.