Deriving Practical Applicability of Hierarchical Identity Based Encryption in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games

Abstract

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) are virtual environments that allow players to socialize, compete, contribute, produce and consume goods leading to an intricate lifestyle resembling real world. With millions of subscribers populating these virtual worlds, investing their time and effort to hoard virtual assets, the boundary between real and virtual economies has become obscure. Players improvise their economy and build their character over a long period, in the persistent virtual world. Hence, each login and subsequent session must be secured. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is used to establish a secure channel for communicating user credentials with the game server. However, PKI is complex, expensive and difficult to deploy. Hierarchical Identity Based Encryption (HIBE) provides a simple, scalable, certificate-free and efficient alternative to the conventional public key infrastructure. This paper investigates the architecture models, security threats and existing security solutions in MMORPGs. The suitability of HIBE for the establishment of secure login session in MMORPGs, is analyzed using three HIBE protocols. The scalability of the protocols were scrutinized, based on parameters like security degradation, public parameter size, ciphertext size and private key size. Computational complexity in terms of encryption and decryption overhead for each protocol, was approximated. Based on the results, the most suitable HIBE protocol for securing the login sessions in MMORPGs was derived.