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Mojang Account Privacy & Security

Floris

I'm just me :) Hi.
Staff member
Joined
Jan 1, 2001
Messages
60,096
Since we're nearing the end of this year, I thought it would be nice to remind everybody that privacy and security is important.

Using a password manager to safely store your account details for websites, games, steam logins, etc. is quite important. Not only to avoid others from abusing your accounts, but to help you restore any if there's ever a compromise.

Throughout 2018 I've seen various websites related to Minecraft being compromised and their details being shared online. Which are then abused. People lose their login to Mojang for example and then can no longer play their favourite game. Taking some preventive measures never hurts.

A unique strong, and long password, is almost a must these days. And while they're harder to remember, they're easy to copy/paste, and organize. Personally I use 1Password.

An account these days might have your IGN (in game name) and your personal email. They might know your PayPal or credit card number (at least the last 4 digits), and your password (hopefully properly hashed and salted). Your full name, and there are preferences for newsletters, account update information, and stuff like that. As well as security questions and answers. You can't possible remember all of this for each website, so why bother trying to remember a pass that's easy to guess, but not the rest.. So please write it down in a safe spot offline, or on your system through a password manager.

What I do at least once a year is go to Mojang's official website, where I login to confirm I still have access to my account. I go through the account preferences and settings and make sure I have an active and to date email address set there. And that there's no recovery email or something that I don't recognize. Once my new password is set, properly and safely noted down somewhere, and I can log back in with it. Then I go in and change the security questions and answers.

By the way, don't answer truthfully to security questions. If you use the truth, it means someone can answer it. Use a long, strong, and unique answer that's just hard to guess.

Once you're all setup, start your Minecraft Launcher again, make sure you're properly logged into your account and play. If your account details from 2018 or before get leaked in 2019, it's old and outdated, and if someone already had access, they will no longer have this access.

Play safe, play fair, play every day! And without a worry that someone else might ruin that fun.

Actually, I blog and tweet about this stuff yearly. In December I tend to start updating outdated accounts and in the new year I go through the sites one by one as I run into them. It's a routine that has helped me be safe. Especially in a age where there are monthly leaks from popular and big websites.

This year, I thought instead of being generic and dump a post on my blog next month, I'd tell my Minecraft friends this month while they're home for the holidays to think about how they deal with privacy and security when it comes to Mojang accounts.

Another tip, if you play somewhere and they require you to register, never use your Mojang details to register. Your launcher is how you deal with the login to the server. Any forum, website, etc is just completely separate and should use their own long,strong,unique password. And don't forget to properly write that down in the password manager either.

Ok, see you all online again building.
 
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