According to data statistics, strategy games also accounted for half of the top 10 mobile game revenue rankings in October 2025. These games, centered around “long-term progression mechanics combined with intense social competition,” are widely recognized within the industry as cash cows.
However, behind the spotlight, a silent war has already begun, devouring developers' profits and players' fair gaming experience. Many strategy games suffer from the plague of Game Black/Gray Industry. In this article, we will analyze security risks in strategy games through case studies and propose solutions.
Game Black/Gray Industry Studios
Strategy games, with their unique gameplay mechanics requiring players to complete missions, gather resources for rewards, and operate within an in-game economy, are highly susceptible to exploitation by studios. These studios employ methods such as single-account farming, mass account creation via group control, and private scripts to bulk-generate starter accounts for resource farming.
The studio sells accounts at low prices through “resource accounts” or channels resources to paying players via the game's internal economy system, directly undermining the official payment system.
Studio practices such as plundering game resources can lead to severe consequences including reduced player willingness to pay and the collapse of the game's economic system. This results in significant losses for game developers, player attrition, and may even shorten the game's lifecycle.
Auto Click
Due to the gameplay mechanics of strategy games, players must remain online for extended periods to gain combat power. This demanding gameplay has led to widespread auto click. These auto click cheats often include features such as auto-harvesting, auto-questing, and auto-battling.
During countermeasures, we observed a significant increase in the proportion of privatized scripts simulating auto click. These scripts employ various methods to disguise themselves as legitimate players and evade game detection. Distinguishing between bot farms and genuine players based solely on gameplay behavior has undoubtedly heightened the difficulty of detection.
The rampant use of auto click cheats severely undermines player willingness to pay, disrupts game fairness, and directly impacts the game developer's revenue.
Hacked Version
Observations indicate that certain strategy games on the market have also encountered hack issues. Game Black/Gray Industry operators utilize tools to bypass game signature verification, perform reverse engineering and debugging on in-game code logic, modify game values and logic, and implant feature menus to create cracked versions of the games.
Hack versions have a profoundly detrimental impact on games, often bundled with a suite of Cheats mods that severely disrupt gameplay balance. This leads to significant player attrition among legitimate users, resulting in financial losses for developers. Furthermore, there is a risk that in-game code and art assets may be appropriated by competitors.
To address risks such as studio operations, auto click, and Hack in strategy games, JikGuard has developed specialized countermeasures. This solution has been integrated into multiple popular games and has demonstrated outstanding protection capabilities.
Auto Click Detection Function
Detection and countermeasures against auto click tools and their variants available on the market.
Situation Awareness Function
JikGuard's proprietary solution intelligently analyzes and mines featureless private scripts to identify and flag studio accounts. It automatically interfaces with game operators for account suspension, delivering highly efficient protection.
Device Fingerprinting Solution
A solution specifically designed for gaming, supporting customizable features. It offers high accuracy, strong security, ease of use, and minimal performance overhead. Each device fingerprint is unique and cannot be evaded through refreshes to circumvent penalties.
Anti-Hack Features
JikGuard's industry-exclusive “API-Free Signature Verification Technology” employs deep encryption for game engines and code, coupled with multi-layered verification of game package signatures and file integrity. This significantly reduces bypass risks, preventing malicious module injection, ad removal, and other tampering activities.
Proactive Malicious Module Detection Mechanism
Unlike other security products on the market that require obtaining samples before combating cheats, JikGuard's exclusive “Proactive Malicious Module Detection Mechanism” actively identifies suspicious modules within games. Combined with its online countermeasure capabilities, it enables proactive defense, significantly reducing the time required to investigate and eliminate cheats.
