How Gamers can protect their Accounts from Getting Hacked

In today’s gaming landscape, gaming accounts are a treasure trove of personal information for cybercriminals looking to take advantage of sensitive data.

Some criminals look no further than a screenname, gamer tag or handle. These names can contain Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as your name, birth date, or a common nickname. Attackers can use this information to find you on data broker sites, and use such info to guess your passwords for logins all over the web.

According to Rob Shavell, a privacy expert with Abine’s DeleteMe, hackers are a known element of playing online, and gamers of all ages should take steps to secure their identities.

Rob says, “The games these days have become bank accounts for kids. They spend their time and they bank their allowance money and parents’ money. You also have a set of people that have some basic hacking skills.” Add in the threat of data brokerage online, and there is plenty of information and incentive for hackers.

Data broker sites contain a plethora of personal information that goes beyond just a username. Shavell continues, “Some of these data brokers now have information about the car you drive and the amount of money you spent on your house, and where you were educated. Your mother’s maiden name, your exact date of birth. These are things that a lot of us tend to use when we’re creating passwords.” Even if a user isn’t using these details as part of their password, they may be using them for security questions.

Stealing game accounts isn’t just the pettiness of mad gamers or kids pulling off small-time scams. It’s a lucrative business. When it comes to hacking game accounts, Shavell says automation is key to the process. He says, “There are tools that hackers can use to scrape all this data and then go try different configurations against different gaming platforms. The sophistications that they bring to those hacks has gone way up. They’ve written software that they trade around on the dark web that makes it easy.”

Hackers don’t even always need to guess the correct password combinations to make a lot of money from their antics. “They don’t have to be successful more than a half of the time to have a really good business. A few correct times out of every hundred or thousand guesses, and all of the sudden, there’s a lot of accounts getting taken out,” Shavell says.

So how can you avoid online gaming hacks? The key is multi-factor authentication, and for now, the best method that is secure, convenient and free is an authenticator app.

Proper password protection is also a must. Using a password manager helps you better protect your passwords. Even if you believe that your repeated password is unique, why take the chance that a hacker gets it right one time?

Examining your digital footprint is another smart tactic to avoid falling victim to a hacker. Google yourself. The amount of information you might find, especially if you’re active on social media or play online games, is alarming.

If seeing your personal information online freaks you out, you might consider investing in a data removal service such as DeleteMe or IDX Privacy. Data removal services submit takedown requests to all kinds of data broker sites and your behalf throughout the year, so that you don’t have to constantly monitor it yourself.

Ultimately, you just have to be mindful of what you share online and how you manage your accounts.

Story via PC Magazine