Last week, Square Enix’ servers were reported to be hacked, which affected millions of user accounts, and many media rushed to cover the news. How to protect players’ in-game interests and properties once again became a hot topic.

1. Frequent Hacks Threaten User Security

Actually, we shouldn’t have been shocked by Square Enix’ being hacked, as there have been so many reports relating to hacking incidents around the world this year. Influential and striking examples include: Sony’s PlayStation Network being hacked early this year caused more than 100 million user accounts to be leaked; the Japanese game company Sega fell victim to the network hack in the middle of this year and Sega Pass members’ email addresses, dates of birth and encrypted passwords were exposed; thousands of Xbox Live accounts were hacked in November, which made each British user lose 100 pounds on average; earlier this year, Apple's server also been hacked; at the end of last month, Nexon’s online cartoon action game MapleStory was hacked and 13 million accounts on South Korean servers were stolen. Similar hacking incidents happen frequently, and affect millions of users every time. This not only excites journalists, but also makes players nervous. When criticizing hackers, don’t you doubt maybe game companies haven’t done their utmost to ensure the security of players’ accounts?

2. Why Game Companies Get Hacked Frequently?

According to the data released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), there’re over 2 billion netizens around the world, more than half of whom are active users and hundreds of millions are online gamers. Such a large number of netizens definitely involve countless credit card accounts and personal information, which are undoubtedly luring to the hackers specialized in making fortune on the Internet through illegal means.

3. How Can Players Protect Themselves?

Below are some suggestions that may help players, especially browser game players, protect their accounts!

How to protect accounts from being stolen?

• Try your best to use personal computers, and detect and kill Trojans at regular intervals!
• Take good advantage of all security protection technologies in the game, e.g. password protection.
• Keep away from petty advantages, and be cautious of any unofficial & seemingly attractive messages that require you to disclose your account or other personal information.
• Be sensitive to the abnormalities in the game! For example, if a friend suddenly acts or says strangely, you must not continue normal communication with him/her until confirming that he/she is really your friend.
• Hackers steal accounts through different ways, e.g. pretending to be administrators or inserting doubtful links. Under such circumstances, you must respond flexibly and be cautious of anything that bears important information!

How to minimize losses if an account is stolen?

• As described above, hackers don’t steal user accounts directly, but attack game companies’ servers to gain substantial user information. At this point, how should you protect yourself?
• Try to set different passwords for different accounts!
• Try not to provide unnecessary information in the game, so as to secure against the disclosure of more privacy!
• Don’t disclose your account information, payment record, etc. in public or to anyone you don’t trust!