The Fortnite team announced it will reward users who enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on their accounts with a free emote.

On 23 August, the makers of the popular online video game revealed an incentive to help users boost their account security: in exchange for enabling 2FA on their accounts, gamers would receive the Boogiedown emote for free in Fortnite Battle Royale.

On a page linked to in its tweet, Fortnite explains that users can enable two-factor authentication to receive verification codes either via email or via an authenticator app installed on their mobile device. The latter option is the more secure of the two, as an app like Google Authenticator can help protect users’ Fortnite profiles in case their email accounts are ever hacked. In many cases, users can also employ that same authenticator app to protect their emails against an account compromise.

Team members recommend that Fortnite users click here to get started. They also make clear that they’ll never ask users for the account passwords. If they receive such a request from someone posing as a Fortnite employee, they should alert the real Fortnite team using the “Contact Us” feature.

Fortnite isn’t the only game that’s used an in-game reward to encourage users who might not otherwise be concerned about their web account security to enable 2FA. Video game developer ArenaNet awarded players of Guild Wars 2 who enabled SMS-based login codes, a 2FA deployment which doesn’t always guarantee account security, with the Mini Mystical Dragon as a free pet. Even so, ArenaNet and Fortnite are in the minority when it comes to video game developers, or tech companies in general, who put a premium on users taking their account security seriously.

In the prevailing absence of such incentives, it’s up to users to take the lead on protecting their accounts with login verification codes. Here’s a resource that explains how you can enable this additional login step on many of the web’s most popular services.

via:  tripwire