FORTNITE CREATORS CAME UP WITH A BRILLIANT WAY TO PROTECT USERS
Fortnite, the most popular video game, and their creators came up with a brilliant new way to encourage users security.
In 2018, information about your entire life is stored on the Internet; your friends, your family, your bank accounts, your work, and even your hobbies. So securing your online accounts is more important than you think. Some of the best companies on the internet employ a method called 'multi-factor' authentication, which usually means requesting two or more pieces of evidence, known as factors, to validate a user's identity.
Usually, this means that a user will be presented to enter a password that they came up with to protect themselves. They then retrieve a second password that is sent to them outside the system, usually over an email or text message, to verify that they are the real deal.
However, Fortnite has now come up with a new security system to protect users. If you protect your account by enabling two-factor authentication, you will unlock a special dance move in "Fortnite: Battle Royale." Not only do users win, because they re getting something they want, – emotes or dances are one of the ways that Fortnite has achieved over $1 billion in revenue despite it being a free-to-play game – but Epic Games also lowers the possibility of hackers, impersonators, or people otherwise trying to illegally access the game. All of this will save the company money in the long run.
Data breaches, or even just dealing with customers with hacked accounts, can be very costly for companies since they need to put more resources toward fixing holes instead of building on the main product. Reducing the number of calls into Epic Games' security and customer service teams means more money saved, and more productive employees. So while Fornite players benefit by lowering the risk of a person or a financial headache, plus getting a nice little goodie in return, Epic Games is the real winner here.
Other companies can definitely learn from this. Too many companies simply hope users turn on multi- or two-factor authentication for their own sake, but the fact is, people are still pretty naive about internet security in the year 2018. (Lots of people still choose basic passwords like "12345.")
What Epic Games has done, others could do. Epic Games took something that customers normally pay for, and gave it to them for free, which is the dance moves in Fortnite, but only if they enabled two-factor authentication. Online services would be keen to follow suit, offering stuff like discounts or freebies in return for enabling tighter security. It's a small cost to the company up front, but it pays off in the long run.