Answers HQ Cybersecurity Awareness Month!
by EA_KubaOriginal Post
Welcome to International Cybersecurity Awareness month!
October is not just about spooky monsters and pumpkin spice lattes!
Your online safety is of utmost importance for us. We encourage you to participate in discussions on the forums and ask questions!
Over the upcoming month, we will share our tips, take a closer look at the tools that we provide you to be secure, and have fun taking quizzes to check your security knowledge.
Anyone who participates in any of the quizzes will get a cool badge at the end of the month to their AHQ badge collection!
Below you will find an agenda of topics to expect over the upcoming weeks:
- Monday 2nd – Sunday 8th: Importance of Online Security in Gaming
- Monday 9th – Sunday 15th: Protecting your gaming account(s)
- Monday 16th – Sunday 22nd: Social Interaction Security Principles
- Monday 23rd – Sunday 29th: Spotting scams, phishing, and malware
- Monday 30th – Interview with Elise Murphy, Sr. Director of Game Security & Anti-Cheat
- Tuesday 31st – Wrap up of the month.
At all,
in keeping with the theme (Cybersecurity Awareness Month) of the thread here is a message that I have posted many times in the Apex Forums that I would like to share.
Account Safety
How to keep your account and hardware safe 101:
- Use strong passwords for you game account.
- Use strong passwords for the associated E-mail account. Keep track of your e-mail accounts and what they are connected to.
- Do not share either of these passwords with others. Keep note of your passwords in a safe place.
- Enable two factor identification for both the game and associated E-mail accounts.
- Do not let others use your game account (Friends and family alike) because if they do something wrong on your account it is still your fault, nobody wants to have a sanction on their account because somebody else did or said something wrong.
- Do not use internet café’s to access your account and play, you do not know what software is on the hardware there, you do not know if the hardware at the cafe has a hardware ban and this can affect your account in a negative way.
- I would suggest only accessing your account with your own trusted hardware, gaming on another person’s hardware brings some of the same risks as above.
- I would also suggest not letting others use your hardware in order to play with their account, because if they get a hardware ban on your hardware while using it, it can have a negative affect on your account.
- Buying used hardware comes with risks as well. The hardware could have been banned and this is not an EA problem but a problem between the buyer and the seller.
- Play nice with others, in other words do not de-mean, harass or bully others in Chat or over voice coms, both can be reported and that can also have a negative effect on your account.
- Use non-offensive user/gamer tag/club tags, if you get a warning about such change it, doing otherwise can lead to a negative effect on your account.
- Play fair, boosting and teaming are cheating.
- Play fair using cheating software or hardware is not fair and is really only cheating yourself.
- Re-read the Terms of Service agreement and the Terms of Sale agreement you agreed to play this game and adhere to it. https://www.ea.com/legal/user-agreement and https://www.ea.com/legal/terms-of-sale
About points 7, 8, and 9, I do know that not everyone can afford multiple hardware setups for the entire family and there is trust that has to be there, talking about the does and don’ts on the use of shared hardware should be done so everybody can enjoy what they do on the hardware and everyone can be safe.
If you believe you have been hacked take appropriate measures to secure your account and associated E-mail account https://help.ea.com/en-gb/help/account/secure-hacked-ea-account/
If you believe that a sanction (Suspension/Ban) placed on your account was by mistake you should reach out to the Terms of Service team https://help.ea.com/za/help/account/information-about-locked-or-banned-or-suspended-accounts/
outweigh the needs of the few or one. --Spock--
Please note: I am a community volunteer – I do not work for EA.
Me Too – If you also have this problem – first post on thread has this button.
XP – For helpful comments (and to help others 'level up').
Mark As Solution – To help others find the answer to the issue now & in the future.
These are solid tips, thank you for sharing!
We'll cover, and expand little bit more on things that you have mentioned. I would love to hear your feedback @Asmodeus566 ! 
Passwords and personal password managers. Use passwords that are long, unique, and randomly generated if possible. To create stronger passwords, follow these best practices:
Vary your passwords for different accounts. If you are reusing a password on multiple accounts and a hacker crack one of them, they may try the recovered passwords on your other accounts too.
Do not include personal identifiers like your phone number, name, child or pet’s name, or birth date. Cyber criminals can easily research any personal information you’ve shared online and use it to guess your password.
Utilize abbreviations or misspellings to avoid using familiar words that can be found in a dictionary. Avoid including commonly used words (e.g., colors, fruits, animals, days) or phrases (e.g., “Password1234).
Do not use repetitive characters or patterns (e.g., “0000,” “1234,” “aaa,” or “7878”).
Use a long password, you should consider using the longest password or passphrase permissible.
Familiarize yourself with the characteristics of strong passwords and analyze potential passwords with this password strength test, which estimates password cracking times and offers tips on making it more secure.
Consider using a unique passphrase. Passphrases are a sequence of text that meet complexity requirements and are much longer than required but tend to be easier to remember than randomized characters.
Use password managers to generate and remember different, complex passwords for each of your personal accounts, a passwords manager will encrypt passwords securing them for you! Not all password managers are built the same. Be sure to consider the following tips when identifying and using password managers for personal accounts:
Do your research before choosing a specific password manager and select one with a strong privacy and security track record.
Look for a password manager that uses AES-256 encryption, the strongest encryption standard, and allows for MFA including biometric authentication.
Select a password manager that either lacks an auto-fill feature or allows you to turn the feature off. Malicious actors have been known to collect auto-filled credentials on browsers.
Choose a strong but memorable master password. Aim to create the longest password possible by using a unique passphrase. Do not share this password with anyone.
If available, use your password manager’s built-in password strength checker and password generator to evaluate your current passwords, identify reuse cases, and create stronger passwords.
Regularly review all your online accounts and delete any that you no longer use. Utilize your password manager’s vault for an overview of your existing accounts.
If you suspect or know that a personal password has been compromised, immediately change the password, and update it in your password manager.
Be safe out there and remember only use trusted hardware for gaming and accessing the internet when using your private accounts, Internet Cafes etc. are not safe.
outweigh the needs of the few or one. --Spock--
Please note: I am a community volunteer – I do not work for EA.
Me Too – If you also have this problem – first post on thread has this button.
XP – For helpful comments (and to help others 'level up').
Mark As Solution – To help others find the answer to the issue now & in the future.
Hey @DisneyActor
Sorry to hear that. Quizzes will be open for participation until the end of the month, and there are unlimited attempts to complete them.
@Asmodeus566 wrote:
At all,
in keeping with the theme (Cybersecurity Awareness Month) of the thread here is a message that I have posted many times in the Apex Forums that I would like to share.
Account Safety
How to keep your account and hardware safe 101:
- Use strong passwords for you game account.
The strongest and most easy to remember passwords are generally full phrases, since they are very hard to both brute force or dictionary attack, but for some bizarre artificial reason, EA doesn't allow spaces in passwords. It would be really nice if that would get fixed, because I see no reason for it.
see also, https://xkcd.com/936/
Hey thanks for sharing this @Nyerguds !
We're covered technique of creating strong passowrds in Protecting your gaming account(s) article
Create a strong, unique password.
Having a complicated password is the first line of defense. Upon creating your EA account, your password must be at least 8 characters long. If you choose to keep your password this short, ensure that it is very complicated. Alternatively, consider adding an additional 4 characters to make it 12 characters long. Adding a few digits, letters, or special characters significantly improves the uniqueness of your password.
Of course, mixing numbers, lowercase and uppercase letters, and special characters can be a bit challenging to our memory at the beginning. However, you can develop a system to help you remember even the most complicated password. For example, take a phrase from a game, book, or movie and create an acronym from it. Ensure that your acronym consists of at least 8 letters, and the letters are not duplicating next to each other (like aabbccdd). The next step is to mix uppercase and lowercase characters, along with numbers and special characters. After you've finished, check the strength of your password at https://passwordmeter.com/.
Aim for a score of 90-100%.
Hey everyone,
Thank you again for joining us this month in Cybersecurity Awareness Month!
Make sure to check out the wrap-up post where we've summarized this event.
We would also love to hear your feedback! If you haven't done so, please fill out this quick (four questions) feedback form below.
