We live in a digitalized era where cyber-attacks are one of the most hazardous threats to our everyday life. Criminals of the cyber world invade their victims’ devices in a wide range of ways, and unfortunately, many of them continue to succeed, despite the high stakes.
As a result, people end up in situations wherein their data is stolen, their private information is leaked online, and/or their financial security is compromised. These harmful threats don’t only approach companies, professionals, or naïve people who just surface through the web––they target gamers as well.
The case has become even more crucial today since purchasing games has shifted towards digital stores rather than in-person retail chains that sell physical copies, which further endangers our financial information. More importantly, many gamers play online multiplayer games with anonymous individuals, which places their security in danger. Such extents of vulnerability are in contrast to how gamers played some years ago, a time when the majority of video games did not even require an internet connection!
But why would anyone wish to access a gamer’s private information? How and in what forms do these threats appear for gamers? What is the best way for you to stay safe without compromising your ability to play games online? In this article, we will first delve into the most important reasons why gamers should use antivirus software to protect themselves. Then, we will discuss how gaming antivirus can help them even more.
To keep our online accounts and purchases safe
Many of us spend considerable amounts of money on our beloved games; we buy big triple-A games, purchase their extra downloadable content and expansions, subscribe to various monthly services, and sometimes even pay for microtransactions in order to acquire new cosmetic items for our existing games. All of these purchases are valuable to us, and even though they are virtual, we tend to continue keeping them, probably for the rest of our lives!
But there is one thing that we need to pay attention to: all of these transactions are done on our personal accounts, whether that is on Steam, GOG, Microsoft Store, or any other online game store or platform. And while we are entitled to keep using the software we have purchased as long as we have access to our account, cyber-attacks can quickly change that. We can easily lose access to all of our precious games and content overnight––all because of malware!
The most dangerous threats for gamers probably come from malware. These perilous files can enter one’s computer in various ways. If you pirate a game and download it from an unofficial source such as a Torrent, which we do not recommend at all, you will have a high risk of infecting your device with malware. Many of the files uploaded on suspicious sources are injected with malware, which can abuse your system, damage its data, and steal your private information.
Even if you purchase and download your games only from legitimate stores such as Steam, Origin, or Uplay, there is always the risk of receiving viruses from their websites’ exploits. Or you might accidentally click on one of those pop-up advertisements that have flashing and vibrating buttons when visiting a seemingly legitimate website and get redirected to a bad link.
Such dangerous malware and viruses can easily monitor your system and social media activities, steal your passwords, and then lock you out of your accounts. So, it is just better to strengthen our PC’s protection with a proper antivirus that would give us a layer of security needed for eliminating any risk of losing our valuable accounts.
To avoid the dangers of phishing
In one of our previous articles, we discussed in length what phishing is and how it can threaten someone’s online safety. But in short, phishing is one of the most common types of the infamous collection of cyber-attack tactics named “Social Engineering.” It involves sending fake email messages in order to lure people into believing a made-up story and share their sensitive information.
Let’s provide you with an example of how phishing might happen to a gamer. Many gamers are active in various markets, aiming to sell their in-game items. Cybercriminals take advantage of this fact by obtaining the seller’s email and sending fake email messages that look like official messages from the market. In reality, these messages contain a dangerous link that would either lead to a fake website designed to gather people’s information or send malware to users’ devices.
This is where antivirus software applications come in to do their magic. These software provide various options for securing the online safety of gamers to avoid such unfortunate circumstances. Often, antivirus software equip users with anti-spam filters that scan through emails and learns to detect spam emails from legitimate emails, thus flagging suspicious communication and informing the user of a threat.
To protect our system and prevent the corruption of our files
Malware files are not always designed to hack our private accounts and steal sensitive data; many cybercriminals make malware only out of ill will. It might be rooted in something personal, perhaps losing an online match, or just out of entertainment. Either way, these types of malware with sinister intentions can wreck your device’s operating system and corrupt your important files in any way that you can think of!
From just removing a folder or a font pack to resulting in your Windows malfunctioning, malware can do various things to your system. But having an active antivirus that keeps scanning your system all the time on your PC can easily detect and eliminate these malware files.
The Benefits of Gaming Antivirus
Many antivirus software not specifically made for gamers can decrease a gaming computer’s overall performance. These applications are designed to keep scanning the PC in order to detect malware right on time, which results in them occupying too much of the system’s processing power and leaving less room for video games to take full advantage of the hardware. Also, they can be quite distracting, especially when you are in the middle of an online match when your antivirus software suddenly pops up and notifies you that it has completed a scan and your system is clear!
Gaming antivirus offers a smoother experience since it is exclusively designed for gamers. Thus, not only does it eliminate distractions to the user, but it also offers users the chance to run games on their PC with the highest possible performance level.
One good example among the best gaming antivirus is Norton 360 for Gamers. This gaming antivirus is designed specifically for those who play online games and includes real-time threat protection, a secure VPN, a password manager, Smart Firewall, 250GB cloud backup, Webcam protection, dark web monitoring, and much more. You can purchase its annual or monthly subscription and use it on up to 3 devices.
Conclusion
For gamers like myself, playing online is a precious passion that we all spend a significant amount of our hard-earned money and hours of our daily time on. However, in today’s world, our privacy should be a topic of our passion just as much as gaming. Thus, whether you mainly stay offline and enjoy single-player games or engage in online, competitive games, staying safe by securing and protecting our personal accounts should be your top priority.
Save yourself the possibility of trouble now and find a proper gaming antivirus and eliminate any possible risk in the future. Be sure to check out our products page for more information on Norton 360 for Gamers, as well as the other antivirus solutions we offer. You can also always get in contact with us if you would like additional help from one of our team members.
