Can Fortnite accounts get hacked?

In recent times, numerous Fortnite users have complained that their playing accounts have been compromised. Hackers have accessed accounts of players and clocked up hundreds of dollars in fake charges.

Check Point alerted Epic Games about the security breach, and the company fixed the problem and issued refunds. However, having your account hacked is still never a good thing. So how do hackers gain access and what measures can you take to prevent the problem?

There are multiple ways in which hackers can gain access into your Fortnite account and it is important to know every one of them.

Using the same password across multiple online accounts is not a good idea.

It is usually a bad idea to use the same password for multiple websites because if one of your accounts is hacked, the hacker can use the same details to get into the remaining accounts. If your Fortnite account has been compromised it is highly likely that one of your other web accounts was compromised first.

Unfortunately, it is very easy for hackers to know whether you have been hacked or not. What they normally do is to download lists of compromised email accounts and their associated passwords and then employ credential stuffing to view the online sites those passwords and emails work for.

Credential stuffing is a form of brute force attack that hackers use to access compromised accounts and it is simple and effective in taking advantage of the less savvy online users – the kind of person who is likely to use the same password across many sites.

Fraudulent offers can easily fool unwitting internet users

Epic Games will never ever ask you to give them your password through an email or a phone call. Do not give out the password to your Fortnite account to anybody. Currently, there are multiple fraudulent third-party offers that promise all sorts of goodies like in-game loot. Such too-good-to-be-true offers should not be trusted.

When your give out the password to your account in exchange for a suspicious offer, you will have invited the hackers. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody who does this when they find hundreds of dollars in fake charges suddenly on their account.

What can you do to prevent this sort of attack?

Apart from the obvious measures – do not use the same password combination for many sites and do not give out your account password to anyone – there are some measures you can take to ensure you are guarded from this sort of hack.

1. Ensure your computer and smartphone are up to date. Switch on auto-updates. This will help to keep your online system safe against any newest attacks.
2. Install a good anti-virus and also update it often, even if you are using Mac or iOS software where viruses are less common. This step is super obvious for PC users, but probably less so for users of mobile devices. There are very many excellent free anti-virus choices for android, iOS, Mac and PC.
3. Link your social media accounts to your Fortnite account. This option is provided by Epic Games and it lets you sign into your Fortnite account via a social media account and recover the account through social media accounts if it has been hacked (or you forgot your login details).
4. Set up the two-step verification sign-in feature. It is important that you do this for all the accounts you own on the internet. Here is how you can set up two-step verification for your Fortnite account:

• Go to Account Settings.
• Click on the tab labeled Password & Security.
• Scroll down and click on enable two-factor sign in.
• Once you sign up an email will be sent to you verifying your Fortnite account. Do this and you will be set.
• The first time you try to sign in using a new gadget, or if 30 days have passed since you last signed in, the system will prompt you to enter a two-factor code to access the account. As a result, even if a hacker has gotten access to your password somehow, they will not be able to sign in without the two-factor code.

The above steps can help you have a more secure account. If your account has been hacked already, you can contact Epic Games.