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How to protect your Fortnite Battle Royale account from hackers

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Don’t tell anyone, but Fortnite Battle Royale is apparently super-popular lately. Epic Games may have started out with a survival sim built on quirky graphics, but spinning their new game universe into the Battle Royale genre and making it free to play has resulted in legions of fans flocking to their servers. It has also resulted in less desirable people joining the crowd, and I’m not talking about that annoying tween who screams into his microphone about campers and cheese attacks.

No, there’s another threat within Fortnite Battle Royale: Hackers. Those damn kids with their interwebs and yearning for easy cash are a plague on the Fortnite scene currently, cracking accounts open like ripe eggs and feasting on the yolk inside. Have you been caught unawares and have seen your Fortnite account tampered with while your credit card bill racks up suspicious new charges? Here’s how you can fight back.

Why is my account being hacked?

Short answer: Bastards. Equally short but more accurate answer: Money. Hackers have discovered that by cracking your account open, they can use your credit card details to purchase in-game items from which they can harvest keys for Fortnite’s other mode, Save the World. Said key is put up for sale at a deeply discounted price and thus gives those players the chance to earn more rare loot which can be used in Battle Royale, with the hackers pocketing the profit. It’s a sneaky cycle of pilfering.

If you want a really detailed read on this hive of scum and villainy, then here’s a great piece by Kotaku detailing the lengths that hackers will go to, in order to get their hands on your sweet sweet Fortnite accounts.

How do I know I’ve been hacked?

Fortnite locked

Most of the time, you’ll probably get an email from Epic Games saying that they’ve noticed too many login attempts on your account, and have locked it for the next two hours. More worryingly, you might have noticed that your credit card has a ton of purchases on it all of a sudden, dropping your bank account tremendously in the process.

Have I Been PWNed will also let you know if your account has been compromised, so give that a look when you have the time. Even better, you can set up that site to notify you in case of any future attacks on your email.

What can I do if this has happened to me?

They may be slow to respond due to the sheer volume of traffic that hits them every minute, but contact Epic Games ASAP to reverse the charges. You can do that, using this link.

How do I prevent this from happening to me?

Prevention is very much better than the cure, and there are many ways to ensure that your account isn’t compromised. First up, make certain that you have a unique password for your account. It’s old advice, but seriously, don’t use the exact same string of letters and numbers to log in to multiple accounts with. If you want a solid password, use a site like Password Generator to create one for you. Memorise it, store it in a text file on a thumb drive or write it down on a piece of paper and the eat that paper.

Whatever you do, make it as hard as possible for those bastard hackers to guess.

Alternatively, make certain that you have Two-Factor sign-in enabled. To do just that, log in to your Epic Games account and navigate to your account settings. From there, enable the Two Factor sign-in and check your inbox for a code that you’ll be sent to enable the system. It’s free, easy and worth the slight amount of extra effort required to keep your account safe from any new activity on a new device that Epic will instantly pick up on.

Provided that you have unique passwords for your social media accounts, linking Fortnite to your Facebook and Twitter accounts isn’t a bad idea either. It’s another layer of security, that also helps if you somehow manage to find your login memories compromised. Beyond that, there’s not much else you can do.

Be vigilant, change your passwords every month and report any suspicious activity right away. Good luck, and happy Fortnite Battle Royale fun-timing!

Last Updated: April 3, 2018

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