Securing Your Accounts
The reality is that, on the whole, security for gamers and gaming isn’t all that different than best practices for normal online, social networking activities. You need to maintain strong passwords and be careful about the where you place your information.
Like anyone else online, gamers are the victims of data breaches, account takeovers, and various social engineering and phishing scams, but they also have the added anxiety of protecting game-specific characters and profiles, which can be occasionally wiped out by bugs, external applications and other malicious actions. Gamers should be very careful about people who claim to be moderators or enforcers asking for login credentials and claiming that an account has had complaints filed against it and is being locked out. Finally gamers should be skeptical of anyone or thing offering free prizes or credits that are often the parts of a larger scam.
HELP PROTECT YOUR ACCOUNT
Choose a secure password!
- Your password should not contain words from any dictionary; this includes words spelled backwards. Dictionaries are often used to generate a list of possible passwords from common words and terms.
- Use a combination of letters, numbers, special characters, spaces and capitalization but keep in mind that their distribution is also very important. For example, "qwerty123" is not very secure, but "t0n1htXp3c1al" is extremely difficult to guess.
- The longer the password, the less the chances that someone may be able to guess it. We recommend that you create a password that uses as many characters as possible.
- Many programs can detect common number/letter replacements (e.g. 5 for an S, 3 for an E, 1 for an I etc.) so try and avoid these when creating your password. Also try to avoid using keyboard sequences (e.g. 1234, qwert, zxasqw, asdasd, etc.) as these are commonly used to create passwords and are therefore often used by “Brute Force” programs.
- We recommend that you do not use your account name or summoner name in your password, as if it is followed by numbers, special characters or other words it will make it easier to guess. Finally try to use a unique password that is different from any of your other passwords (email account, social media websites, online bank account, other online game accounts, etc).
Keep your antivirus software active and updated!
- Antivirus software helps you fight against viruses and other malicious third party programs (i.e. key-loggers and Trojans).
- Computer viruses are software programs that are deliberately designed to interfere with computer operation; record, corrupt, or delete data; or spread themselves to other computers and throughout the Internet.
- You must update your antivirus software regularly, to help prevent the most current viruses. You can set up most types of antivirus software to update automatically.
- Protection from spam. Spam is incredibly annoying when you're bombarded with emails and ads that you have no interest in whatsoever. What many people do not realize is that if you're bombarded with spam that seems to come from nowhere every time you log in, that spam is most likely the result of a virus stored on your computer.
- Live your Antivirus software run 24/7.
Uncheck remember password and clear data!
- Turn off the checkbox "Remember Me" when accessing a game or websites. When using a shared computer, anyone who has access to the same desktop session also will be able to automatically log in using your credentials.
- There is also risk that if somebody can steal a browser cookie, they can gain access to the site. And even that depends on what is being checked.
- Clear your data and wipe out all cookies and caches every time, you end your gaming session. This will protect your account to the fullest.
Do not share your account information!
- You should not share your account with anyone, not even a friend or a family member.
- Some players might try to con you to believe they are the moderator of the game, and start asking for your account username and password. Absolutely do not give them! A moderator have no rights to ask the players for their account information.
- Account trading should be avoided as you will have no way to reverse the transaction if the deal goes bad. Also, since the original account owner will have knowledge of creation details, it is possible that they might even be able to recover the account via Player Support! Do not be tempted by dubious offers.
Check your recent activity!
- Some gaming platform has your records of your last login and change of password, if you find something unusual, it's time you make a report to the administrator to protect yourself from threats.
- You should turn on a checkbox to receive an email notifying you of unusual activity, you can see when and where your account has been accessed, including successful sign-ins and security challenge.
Accessing your Accounts from a Public Place
- Do you access your account from public places like cyber cafes and LAN Shop? If so, you are definitely under the risk of losing your password.
- In fact, many people lose their gaming account in such places. For the owner of the cyber cafe, it is just a cakewalk to steal your password. For this, all he need to do is install a keylogger program on his computers.
- So, when you login to your email account from this PC, you give away your password to the cafe owner. Also, there are many Remote Administration Tools (RATs) which can be used to monitor your browsing activities in real time.
- This doesn’t mean that you should never use cyber cafes for surfing the Internet. I know, not all the cyber cafe owners will be so wicked. However, it is recommended not to use public places for accessing confidential information. If it comes to the matter of security never trust anyone, not even your friend.
- I always use my own computer to login to my accounts so as to ensure the safety.
So with this I conclude my post and assume that I have helped my readers to protect their online accounts from being hacked. Please pass your comments. :)