Published on April 18th, 2015 | by Guest

How to protect yourself while gaming online

Competitive online gaming has been on the rise in recent years. The fact that online connectivity around the world has expanded to the farthest reaches, makes this all possible with a seamless connection. Having this type of daily interaction with others can be highly entertaining, or a total catastrophe and loss of your personal data. Today we will talk about online scamming and how it is possible to protect yourself from these types of fraudulent acts.

games

Online Friends

Be wary of the people you meet online, it is usually a guarantee you will meet others from online communities or even in game. Not everyone will be this horrible person attempting to steal your account information, but do you know who is who? Take the time to establish friendships and even if you become close, remember to keep all personal information to yourself at all times. These online friends have no business knowing your address or account information.

scam

Scammers and frauds look for chances to become friends with high level online players and slowly draw the information needed to eventually take over the account. Believe it or not, but in the eyes of a scammer, every hour you play on your account is like adding money into a bank account.

Online forums are stuffed with “legit” accounts for sale for high prices; some go up in to the thousands of dollars. No account is ever legally sold or “legit”, the majority of the time these are stolen accounts and will be claimed by the owner once verified by the company.

In-Game Currency

Gold farming companies have been taking over every single MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online Game) by spamming in-game and luring players into using their services. Not only is it illegal to purchase in-game currency from third party sites but you also fall into website phishing scams.

When visiting these sites they can record private information such as IP addresses and even more detailed information by asking you to sign up for the site itself. Never download anything provided by these types of sites, as it could result in malware and can strip you of your account in a matter of minutes.

Complex Passwords

passwdgen Take the time to make complicated passwords for all gaming accounts as pin/password crackers are out there and they will sell your password for a small fee to fraudulent persons on private forums. The larger and more complex the password, the less likely a hacker will want to sit there and figure it out. There are many websites and password generators that can provide you with ways to create high security password.

Most mmorpg’s in today’s market offer applications that can be downloaded on android or iOS that provide a randomly generated password every time you log in for an added coat of security.

Anti-Virus

Gamers will complain about the slowdowns that antivirus software often provides, and how they can be annoying by having pop-ups in the middle of a game session. Even though this might be true, it is always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to keeping your account secure. Most antivirus software come with a “gaming” option which is preprogrammed; if your software does not have this, you can always look online for a guide to enhance your experience.

VPN

We all have to travel at some time or another, and to be honest, it can get pretty boring without some sort of entertainment. When connecting online to a public network, please have a virtual private network in place to provide that extra security needed with public Wi-Fi networks. A VPN creates a secure encrypted connection so nobody else connected to the same Wi-Fi can take a look at your information. The last thing you need is for your online game account to be hacked into while you’re out and about.

Cyber Bullying

bully Seeing as how competitive online gaming has gotten extremely popular in the past few years this has been a breeding ground for bullying. If you feel that you are being pushed around online, and even threatened, do not be afraid to report this to GM’s (Game Masters).

I really hope you can take some of these tips and place them into your daily online life. Playing video games online should be about having fun and meeting good people, not about getting frustrated or harassing others.

I really appreciate being able to write a piece for Techno FAQ and being able to provide great information for fans of the site.

About this article:

This article has been contributed by Caroline. Her blog Secure Thoughts deals with interesting topics on internet security.

Tags: gaming, online, protect, safety