When gamers are excited about a particular title they’ve been desperate to purchase for a while, it can be easy for them to lower their cybersecurity defenses and forget to take the necessary steps to ensure their safety while gaming. Sadly, in India and around the world, online criminality is an ongoing issue that can also impact gaming audiences.
Alongside phishing emails and dating and romance scams, there are a variety of dangers that can impact a gamer’s progress and leave them feeling violated. It’s a depressingly common scenario that gamers are having to deal with on a daily basis. Of course, you can sample colorful games like Gems Bonanza on safe and secure websites, while many gamers trust the security of their PSN accounts given the various measures Sony has taken, such as introducing 2-step verification, but there are a range of other steps you can take to add an additional layer of security to your gaming adventures. They aren’t too tricky to carry out, either.
So, whether you’re mobile gaming or embarking on a marathon PC gaming session, let’s look at a range of easy-to-implement online safety tips for gaming that can help you keep hackers away.
A strong password is a must
This first recommendation is obvious, but you’d be amazed at the amount of people who don’t put enough thought into coming up with a tough-to-crack password. A long and complex creation is one to go for here, with many effective passwords containing 12 characters, including numbers, letters, and symbols. Avoid using your date of birth here, keep any personal information out of it, and come up with a unique password that is hard to figure out. You can even consider using a password manager here, with these helpful tools creating strong passwords for you.
Always research your games
Another way in which some gamers are slacking here is because they jump into a particular release without assessing whether or not the website or the game in question is actually safe to play. Whether it’s a browser gaming website or an app for your phone, just because the title in question is an option, it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily safe to play. Alarmingly, sometimes you could end up downloading a title that is essentially malware that is designed to damage your device and even gain unauthorized access to it. As such, it’s hugely important to read reviews of games, look at the developers behind them, and ensure that it’s a legitimate title before committing to playing it.
Updates must be automatic
Given the various updates our favored modern-day devices require, it can be easy to forget to update them on occasion. Failing to do so can result in a horrifying experience, though, with hackers always looking at new and improved ways to carry out their dirty work. It’s therefore important to set any updates for your gaming hardware and software as automatic. Then, from there, once you restart the device in question, the updates will be installed, and your chances of experiencing a cyber attack will lessen in the process.
Flip on MFA
Another way in which gamers are fighting back against any online criminals is by flipping on multi-factor authentication (MFA). Also known as 2-factor authentication, it makes your accounts even harder to compromise. From security keys to fingerprint access, there are numerous steps you can take here.
Also, consider only using credit cards, keeping personal information offline, using a VPN, blocking players who make you feel uncomfortable, and not using your first or last name in your usernames.