A team of experts Kaspersky Lab has teamed up, providing tips with developers of the action and adventure game Watch Dogs. The game was released on 27 May all over the world by Ubisoft, a leading producer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment products. Her goal cooperations was to avoid attempts to over-impress or misrepresent cyberspace. Another goal was to ensure the maximum possible realism in the game's theoretical digital scenarios, both in game play and in character and plot development.
Watch Dogs tells the story of Aiden Pearce, an extraordinary hacker whose criminal past led to a violent family tragedy. By chasing those who have harmed his family, players will be able to monitor and "hack" their enemies, controlling anything connected to the City Central Operating System (ctOS). Watch Dogs allows the player to use Chicago as his ultimate weapon and apply his own style of revenge.
The Watch Dogs development team approached Kaspersky Lab experts in early 2013, shortly after the latter released a major investigation into the digital espionage campaign. Red October. Red October was a sophisticated digital espionage toolkit capable of stealing data from computer systems, collecting information από smartphones, να καταγράφει archives ήχου αν το σύστημα διέθετε μικρόφωνο και να «χακάρει» μεταδόσεις από webcam. Στη συνέχεια, «ανέβαζε» τα πάντα σε έναν server. At that time, most of the Watch Dogs script was completed and the developers were putting the final touches to make it look more realistic. This is where the collaboration with the Kaspersky Lab team began. The company's team of experts offered technical advice and suggestions on what they felt was accurate and what could be adjusted or changed to make the gameplay and plot progression feel more authentic in technical terms.
Commenting on the collaboration with Ubisoft on Watch Dogs, Vitaly Kamluk, Principal Security Researcher of Kaspersky Lab's Global Research and Analysis Team, said: "This game really got us interested. Ubisoft was very accurate in predicting impending threats and what cities might look like in five or ten years. Many of the digital attacks that take place in the game have already taken place. The game successfully portrays what can happen if control of the systems falls into the wrong hands. By playing, you can gain control and see how this creates difficulties for the people around you. "You can take the situation to the extreme and cause chaos in the city, while your actions can even hurt or kill people."
For example, most of the "hacks" in the game are related to automatic control systems. This is a relatively new trend, which began a few years ago with the advent of the Stuxnet worm, which attacked industrial control systems at an Iranian nuclear power plant. This was an example of how an electronic program could harm the real world, as Stuxnet destroyed real equipment. The same thing can happen with Watch Dogs.
Ο Vitaly Kamluk He added: "Some of the digital attacks are similar to what happens in the real world. Fortunately, however, they remain just a simulation! It is important to understand that Watch dogs do not teach you how to become a hacker. What it can do is show you how powerful a hacking tool can be. We hope that the game will give the world the opportunity to consider the security of future urban operating systems, which must be taken very seriously. "Ultimately, if these systems are 'hacked', the consequences can be catastrophic."
"Working with Kaspersky Lab has helped us ensure the realism of the game in technical terms," he said. Thomas Geffroyd, Brand Content Director by Ubisoft. “We had to operate freely to a degree in order for the game to retain its fun character. So Vitaly and his team gave us the right advice as part of our effort to bring this content into a video game."
