Hi there,
Over the past year, multiple accounts on our forums have been hijacked by bots, scammers and advertisers. Unfortunately, many players may be victim to data breaches and data leaks. More recently, in January 2024, over 26 billion records and 12TB+ was leaked (Nicknamed "Mother of all breaches"). You can check if your data has been breached and from what website at this link. (Thanks @Kostas).
Accounts that have been hijacked on our forums have included veteran players. Accounts that have been hijacked are subject to being disabled temporarily until recoverable by the account owner through a verification process.
Password leaks are NOT uncommon, so it's important to take protective measures to secure your passwords. I highly advise reconsidering poor password habits across all platforms that our players use for their safety beyond SF-SE.
—TIPS to prevent account hijacking:
• Use a unique password for each account you create - don't re-use passwords, even if the account doesn't have a lot of value.
• Change your password IMMEDIATELY upon discovery of your information being compromised within a data breach.
• Passwords should be long (12+ characters), and use a combination of capitalization, languages, characters and symbols.
• Phrases are easy to remember, and hard to crack.
• Use 2-factor authentication when available. You can set up 2-factor authentication on the SF-SE forums here. @Kostas suggests this 2FA app.
• Store your passwords safely; Handwritten is the most secure. Alternatively, @bear recommends keepass as a password manager from 10+ years of personal experience, although many alternative password managers exist - please use your own research when doing considering a password manager.
NOTE: SFSE has NOT been hacked/compromised. This was the result of a third-party database leak.
Over the past year, multiple accounts on our forums have been hijacked by bots, scammers and advertisers. Unfortunately, many players may be victim to data breaches and data leaks. More recently, in January 2024, over 26 billion records and 12TB+ was leaked (Nicknamed "Mother of all breaches"). You can check if your data has been breached and from what website at this link. (Thanks @Kostas).
Accounts that have been hijacked on our forums have included veteran players. Accounts that have been hijacked are subject to being disabled temporarily until recoverable by the account owner through a verification process.
Password leaks are NOT uncommon, so it's important to take protective measures to secure your passwords. I highly advise reconsidering poor password habits across all platforms that our players use for their safety beyond SF-SE.
—TIPS to prevent account hijacking:
• Use a unique password for each account you create - don't re-use passwords, even if the account doesn't have a lot of value.
• Change your password IMMEDIATELY upon discovery of your information being compromised within a data breach.
• Passwords should be long (12+ characters), and use a combination of capitalization, languages, characters and symbols.
• Phrases are easy to remember, and hard to crack.
• Use 2-factor authentication when available. You can set up 2-factor authentication on the SF-SE forums here. @Kostas suggests this 2FA app.
• Store your passwords safely; Handwritten is the most secure. Alternatively, @bear recommends keepass as a password manager from 10+ years of personal experience, although many alternative password managers exist - please use your own research when doing considering a password manager.
NOTE: SFSE has NOT been hacked/compromised. This was the result of a third-party database leak.
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