Protecting a gaming machine from rogue code

1. A method for protecting network-attached gaming machines by isolating a gaming machine the method comprising:

providing an operating system for use on a controller of the gaming machine;

providing a wagering game controlled by the operating system and operable to receive a wager of monetary value and to generate a game outcome;

recognizing unauthorized attempts by rogue code to manipulate the game outcome of the wagering game; and

securing, by the operating system, the gaming machine from recognized unauthorized attempts to manipulate the game outcome of the wagering game by the rogue code by:

isolating the gaming machine from other gaming machines by disabling a network access feature of the operating system, the disabling including disabling a network interface of the operating system and removing at least one transport layer of a network stack from the gaming machine; and

removing debugging information from the wagering game controlled by the operating system, the debugging information including a symbol table, wherein

the symbol table maps functions and variables of the wagering game to memory locations of the gaming machine.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein manipulating the game outcome includes an unauthorized user attempting to access the software on the gaming machine.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein disabling a network access feature comprises removing a remote login component from the gaming machine.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the remote login component is a telnet component.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein the remote login component is a rlogin component.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein recognizing an attempt to manipulate the game outcome includes detecting an invalid userid entered into a login program.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein recognizing an attempt to manipulate the game outcome includes detecting an invalid password entered into a login program.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein disabling the network access feature of the operating system comprises setting a password entry to an invalid password.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the password entry corresponds to a privileged user.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the operating system is a non-proprietary operating system.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the non-proprietary operating system is a version of a Linux operating system.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein disabling the network access feature of the operating system comprises disabling a network device driver of the operating system.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein disabling the network interface comprises disabling an Ethernet interface.

14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

temporarily enabling the network access feature;

transferring data to the gaming machine using the network access feature; and

disabling the network access feature again after transferring the data.

15. A computer readable, non-transitory medium having executable computer program code to perform the method of claim 1 when said computer program code is run on a computer.

16. A method for protecting gaming machine software operating on a gaming machine controller, the method comprising:

providing an operating system for use on the gaming machine controller, the operating system being a version of a Linux non-proprietary operating system;

receiving the gamine machine software for execution on the gaming machine controller and controlled by the operating system;

configuring the gaming machine software to conduct a wagering game on the gaming machine to receive a wager of monetary value and to generate a game outcome;

recognizing unauthorized attempts by rogue code to manipulate the game outcome of the wagering game; and

securing the wagering game from unauthorized manipulations of the game outcome of the wagering game by the rogue code by:

isolating the gaming machine from other gaming machines by disabling a network access feature of the operating system, the disabling including disabling a network device driver; and

removing debugging information from the wagering game controlled by the operating system, the debugging information including a symbol table, wherein

the symbol table maps functions and variables of the wagering game to memory locations of the gaming machine.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein disabling the network access feature of the operating system comprises disabling a network interface.

18. A gaming machine comprising:

a controller;

a storage device with an operating system and gaming software stored thereon;

one or more processors, the one or processors configured to execute the operating system and gaming software to perform operations comprising:

executing a wagering game controlled by the operating system and operable to receive a wager of monetary value and to generate a game outcome;

recognizing unauthorized attempts by rogue code to manipulate the game outcome of the wagering game; and

securing, by the operating system, the gaming machine from recognized unauthorized attempts to manipulate the game outcome of the wagering game by the rogue code by:

isolating the gaming machine from other gaming machines by disabling a network access feature of the operating system, the disabling including disabling a network interface of the operating system and removing at least one transport layer of a network stack from the gaming machine; and

removing debugging information from the wagering game controlled by the operating system, the debugging information including a symbol table, wherein

the symbol table maps functions and variables of the wagering game to memory locations of the gaming machine.