Developing autonomous bots for online games

about the author

Nick Cano wrote his first scripts for open source game servers when he was 12 and started a business selling his bots when he was 16. He has been a part of the game-hacking community ever since and advises game developers and designers on best practices to protect their games against bots. Nick also has years of experience in detecting and defending against malware, and he has spoken at many conferences about his research and tools.

about the Technical Reviewer

Stephen Lawler is the founder and president of a small computer software and security consulting firm. He has been actively working in information security for over 10 years, primarily in reverse engineering, malware analysis, and vulnerability research. He was a member of the Mandiant malware analysis team and assisted with high-profile computer intrusions affecting several Fortune 100 companies. Stephen also developed and teaches the Practical ARM Exploitation class, which has been offered at BlackHat and several other security conferences for the past five years.

Table of Content

Acknowledgments Introduction PART 1: TOOLS OF THE TRADE Chapter 1: Scanning Memory Using Cheat Engine Chapter 2: Debugging Games with OllyDbg Chapter 3: Reconnaissance with Process Monitor and Process Explorer PART 2: GAME DISSECTION Chapter 4: From Code to Memory: A General Primer Chapter 5: Advanced Memory Forensics Chapter 6: Reading from and Writing to Game Memory PART 3: PROCESS PUPPETEERING Chapter 7: Code Injection133 Chapter 8: Manipulating Control Flow in a Game PART 4: CREATING BOTS Chapter 9: Using Extrasensory Perception to Ward Off Fog of War Chapter 10: Responsive Hacks Chapter 11: Putting It All Together: Writing Autonomous Bots Chapter 12: Staying Hidden Index