I was standing in the kitchen yesterday when my son (he's 12) came up to me and said, "Dad, I need to enable two-factor authentication on my Fortnite account, can you help me?"
My first thought was, "Say what? My 12-year-old cares about cybersecurity and knows about two-factor authentication (2FA)?"
Hmm.
Has he secretly been reading the cybersecurity stories I write at SecureWorldExpo.com? That would be cool.
[Me] "How do you know about two-factor authentication, and what is it?"
[Son] "It's where they send you a code when you're trying to login to Fortnite. I saw it on the Fortnite Instagram page."
[Me] "Can I take a look at that?" I wanted to make sure this wasn't some sort of phishing post that seemed legit.
And there it was, right on my son's phone:
And then it all made sense.
My son was not consciously thinking about cybersecurity but he was learning something about it. It was because he wanted the free dance move that Fortnite was offering to all players who enable two-factor authentication!
In this case, it's the chance to unlock the Boogiedown Emote, for free. I mean, who wouldn't want their player to have moves like these?
Fortnite is the most popular video game in the world, revenues for the game are closing in on $1 billion, and free skins (outfits for digital players) or dance moves are a really big deal.
Motivating gamers to increase their cybersecurity
Epic Games, Fortnite's creator, knows this and decided to motivate players to enable two-factor authentication. This requires users to enter their password and then a one time code the game company sends to the player.
That is, two factors, for a single login.
Based on the anecdotal results in the family kitchen, I'm going with "the plan worked."
How to enable two-factor authentication on Fornite and unlock free emote
Here are the steps Epic games lists in its blog post on how to enable 2FA in Fortnite:
- In your
ACCOUNT Settings, click on the PASSWORD & SECURITY tab to view your security settings. - At the bottom of the page, under the TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION heading, click to ENABLE AUTHENTICATOR APP or ENABLE EMAIL AUTHENTICATION as your two-factor method.
Security awareness from a video game?
There is no doubt millions of players will be doing this in the coming days for the freebie. The company posted, "As a reward for protecting your account, you’ll unlock the Boogiedown Emote in Fortnite Battle Royale."
But what if this move by a video game maker introduces the next generation to two-factor authentication as the norm?
That could improve cybersecurity around the world, all because of the demand for a dance move!
