Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? If you’re even reading this I’m gonna take it as a given that you want to know how to stay safe whilst online gaming. Whether it be Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, or any other game, hackers are something that can cause major problems for online gamers. They ruin games and give players a bad experience which in turn could lead them away from the game completely. This is an ongoing issue across multiple platforms (pc & console).
Now there are two things I’d like to mention before continuing with this article. Firstly, these steps aren’t going to prevent a 100% chance of being hacked but they will greatly reduce the chances of your account being hacked/vulnerable, making hacking much more difficult. Secondly, this article is aimed at Call of Duty gamers but some general knowledge can be applied via security software to other games and operating systems such as Windows, Linux, or macOS.
Alright with that out the way, let’s start with the basics. It all comes down to changing your passwords frequently and using a mixture of different passwords for each account you have on each system. If you don’t already change your password regularly or use a mixture of weird/random letters/numbers then you need to start doing it now!
Okay, the first thing we’re going to do is create a new email address that will be linked exclusively to gaming accounts (i.e. PlayStation Networks, Steam, etc) then you’ll create new passwords for these emails and ONLY these emails. You should never be using the same password for every email account you have, that’s a vulnerability in itself.
To create a new email address click here and follow the steps on the screen.
The next step is to create strong passwords which are random and unique for these gaming accounts. There are a number of ways to do this but I would recommend going to bit.ly/strongpasswordgenerator which will give you some completely random passwords with numbers, symbols, and letters mixed together so they can’t be used again by anybody else. If possible use all three types of characters in your password (lowercase & uppercase letters, numbers & symbols). Don’t be tempted to just use the generator once then think it’s okay because you chose a good password, you need to make sure you use different passwords for all your emails and accounts. If at first, it seems impossible to remember which password goes with each email account then write them down on a piece of paper and stick it on the inside of a cupboard where nobody can see it. Also, don’t be tempted to just take a few characters from the passwords the generator gives you, that defeats the point!
When creating your new email address and passwords, try to use completely unique email addresses as well so hackers have less chance of trying similar emails/passwords combinations against other accounts. If possible choose an obscure service provider such as Gmail or Hotmail instead of Gmail or BTinternet etc.
So now we’ve got our brand new email address and password we need to go into our Sony/Microsoft/Steam accounts and change the passwords to match that of your new emails. Make sure you click ‘Save’ or whatever it says so they save and stay saved. Also, keep a note of which email originally linked with this account because you’ll need it later on!
The next thing we’re going to do is set up 2-factor authentication for all your gaming accounts. To do this, sign in to each gaming service (i.e. PlayStation Network, Steam, etc) then follow the steps on the screen to activate 2-factor authentication within that specific account. For example, here’s how you do it with PSN:
Now that you’ve gone through the steps for activating 2-factor authentication on PSN, go onto the next service you want to activate it on and follow the other tips as well.
