Defeating aliens, building amusement parks, shooting guns, and online battle royals serves as a great stress reliever for some. And over the years, there have been plenty of stress to relieve ourselves from thanks to the pandemic and lockdown which gave us spare time to deal with. At that time, the study showed that there was a 30% increase in online gaming traffic from the first to the second quarter of 2020.
However, hackers are taking advantage of the popular online gaming portal to make a profit on the dark web. So, before you return to your favourite virtual world, you should consider video game hacks and increase your gaming security.
Web attacks on gaming companies were reported to have moved up 340% between 2019 and 2020, according to Akamai. Hackers have been targeting big gaming companies with different motives. It was reported that a code was stolen from Electronic Arts to be sold on the dark web. Through these stolen source codes, developers surfing the dark web could reverse-engineer popular games or copy the code into their game. CD Projekt Red and Capcom were also hit by hackers with a few months difference in the attacks. One was focused on financial information while the other was on the source code of the company.
Why Video Games Are Being Hacked
Video gaming companies host much valuable information, which gamers trust to keep their payment data safe and secured. One way for hackers to target gamers is through malware disguised as a cheating advantage. Cheat software for online games is just as common as watching YouTube tutorials these days, as players intend to become the best out of thousand. Call of Duty: Warzone’s users were targeted through a malware scam some time ago. The malware was advertised on YouTube with instructions on how to download it. The video had a lot of views and comments which made it seem legitimate, however, the truth was far from it. One of the steps to installing the software was disabling the antivirus programs and firewalls. Disabling them will let the cybercriminals walk straight into your device.
In this article brought to you by https://www.kingjohnnie.info/en/, we will be listing out a few tips you should follow to secure your online gaming accounts.
Do Not Reveal Personal Information
Nowadays, it is very common to see gamers use variations of their real names and birthdates in their usernames. However, this is not advisable, try not to use your real name or birthdate in your username, instead, you should consider using a nickname or randomized numbers. Also don’t reveal your personal details like birthday, phone number, and others on chats or streams. There are cybercriminals lurking everywhere waiting for you to slip up so they can gather these details to impersonate you.
Edit Your Privacy Settings
In some video games, players will be placed together with gamers across the world. While this is great, you should consider who you give access to to follow your online profile. If you get a strange friend request, you should be on alert. There might be dangerous motives behind that like phishing for valuable personal data. So it is advisable to edit your privacy setting to make your profile invisible to strangers.
Avoid Cheat Software
Always purchase games legally and play the games just as was instructed. Stay away from games tagged with free download or pirated versions and cheat software, as they are more likely to be housing malware. Instead, challenge yourself, and play the video games just as it was intended, don’t look for cheats.
Log In With VPN
Virtual Private Network (VPN) has always proven to be useful when it comes to masking your IP address, it will also shield you hackers lurking around real money online slots. VPN scrambles a user online data traffic, which makes it difficult for cybercriminals to gain access to your IP address.
