Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING APRIL 2018 32 engineer their techniques and build detection models all over again. It’s a never-ending process.” Likewise, language barriers that once might have provided some level of extra protection to companies based in places like Macau are being broken down too. “I don’t think there’s any difference between Asia and the rest of the world anymore,” Jackson says. “I think in the past, because a lot of the cyber criminals came from non-Asian countries, it was a little bit difficult for them to attack systems which might have been in Chinese, Japanese or any other Asian language. But I believe this is less of a barrier now because of advances in translation technology driven by Artificial Intelligence. “Google translate, for example, used to be a source of amusement for incomprehensible translations. Not any more since they began using AI a few years ago. They and other translation services are highly accurate now and this allows seamless ability to quickly understand data being viewed regardless of language. “It just opens the door a little bit more. Add to that the fact that many Asian countries have weaker laws and regulations and I would say overall, if you are looking at the global landscapes, Asia is probably behind the curve. But it can be quickly improved and that’s where we come in.” Ultimately the risks are many. More than merely financial, they include regulatory risks, compliance risks andasEdisonChendiscovered, reputational risks which can be the hardest of all to recover from. FEATURE IN FOCUS As Smolanoff notes, “The world has seen a lot of data breaches lately and some companies come out of it looking pretty good while others really take a big hit in the press. That really comes down to how these folks have prepared in advance to protect themselves and also test their capabilities ahead of time for dealing with a crisis.” Adds Jackson, “I think we’re seeing an evolution. Data breaches have traditionally been all about easy access to money but we’ve seen a move in the last few years to business process hacking. A good example is the Bangladesh Bank attack (US$81 million was stolen in a cyber heist in 2016). “I think the gaming industry is ripe for this because there are so many processes around it on how money is handled, how valuables are transferred. The criminals, they are extremely ingenious and organized crime in particular will look to use insiders so that they can learn more about internal processes that they can seek to exploit. They will look for ways to subvert those gaps in controls and processes. And they are patient as well. They’ll sit and observe. If they get access to email accounts, they’ll watch how communication is done, how business is done and look for those gaps and flaws and they’ll strike when the time is right. “With casinos moving to attract younger customers with more innovative mobile solutions for gaming, yes they will attract more customers but they’ll also be bringing higher risks. If these are not thoroughly tested for security, operators will be opening themselves up to risks of attack.” Edison Chen saw his reputation suffer major damage after incriminating photos were stolen from his computer. “Many Asian countries have weaker laws and regulations and I would say overall, if you are looking at the global landscapes, Asia is probably behind the curve. But it can be changed and that’s where we come in.”