Gamers are under attack again. This time, it’s those who love one of the most popular online games in existence. Boasting more than 40 million players all around the world, it’s likely that if you have children between the ages of eight and 18, you have heard of this one and you might have had a difficult time or two getting them to stop playing and come to dinner. Epic Games is issuing refunds to players of the epically popular game Fortnite: Battle Royale who reported that their accounts were hacked.
Supposedly the cyberthieves used “well-known” hacking techniques that made it relatively efficient for Epic to resolve the issues for the players who were affected.
It’s unclear at this point how they did get the information to infiltrate the accounts, but Epic has suggested password reuse as a possible method. This is when hackers use credentials that were acquired in some other manner, such as those purchased on the Dark Web to perform credential stuffing. This is a type of brute force attack where password dumps (lists of compromised emails and passwords that go with them) are tried repeatedly on other accounts until they find what works. So, it is very important not to use the same credentials on multiple accounts. This can be particularly significant for similar types of accounts. For example, if you use the same logins for your Fortnite account that you do with another gaming account, it’s not a stretch to assume they would try using them on that gaming site too.
If you see charges on your account that don’t jive with you, it’s a pretty good indicator that your account is included in the hacked batch. Change your password right away and if you do use it on other sites, even if they are completely unrelated sites, change those too. Don’t forget to use at least eight characters and include some special characters, as well as upper and lower case letters.
If you haven’t seen anything odd, it is not a guarantee that your account has not been accessed. So it’s good advice to change your password anyway. Better to be safe.
Since there has not been any assurance that password reuse was the culprit in this case, it could also have been someone taking advantage of unpatched systems. So also make sure all yours are updated with the latest game versions. Also, make sure your operating systems are updated while you’re at it.
Check to make sure your anti-virus is updated too. This may help prevent this or other issues. All your internet-connected devices should have some type of Anti-virus on them. Yes, even if you are only using Apple products. Those have vulnerabilities that can be exploited too.
As with any account that has personal information stored in it, use two-factor authentication (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA) whenever it’s offered. Gaming accounts often have information on children as well as payment card information. Don’t dismiss gaming accounts when it comes to security. For Fortnite: Battle Royale, you can set up 2FA by going into the account settings and clicking on the Password & Security tab. At the bottom, you should see a Two-Factor Sign In button.
Epic Games is also reminding players that the company will never ask for passwords or sign in credentials via email or by an unsolicited telephone call. Keep all passwords safe and don’t give them to anyone. There is one exception: Kids should share them with parents or guardians. But that’s it.
There are many third-party offers promising all kinds of good stuff for gamers, including free in-game goodies and V-Bucks. But you should never be required to give out passwords in exchange for them.
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