Online gaming is something that’s taken very seriously by hundreds of millions of players, across the world. If you’re a professional gamer, or you aspire to be, then you’ll need a machine that’s optimised for performance. It should deliver responsive gameplay, as well as rock-solid security. The better you become at your chosen game, after all, the more tempting a target you’ll be to malicious online actors.

Install a Gaming-Optimized VPN for IP Masking

A VPN offers a means of concealing your home IP address. It works by routing your traffic through a remote server, encrypting all of your traffic along the way. The result is a connection that can’t be spied upon by third parties. Thus, this extra process can introduce extra cautionary steps.

Fortunately, there are ways to minimize this problem through your choice of VPN protocol. A VPN Chrome extension with a trusted provider, allows you yo browse privately without interrupting your gameplay and affecting ping rates.

Defend Against “Hyper-Volumetric” DDoS Attacks

One of the major advantages of a VPN is that it offers protection against Distributed Denial of Service attacks (or DDoS). This is a form of attack which involves thousands upon thousands of remote bots sending data to you simultaneously, such that your connection is overwhelmed. Home routers can’t cope with sudden traffic spikes of this kind.

But the servers employed by VPN providers are much more resistant to this kind of traffic surge. Thousands upon thousands of users are using these servers at any given time – and a spike in traffic that would cause a problem for a home router will barely register on these machines.

The Aisuru-Kimwolf botnet comprises millions of compromised devices around the world, which can be used to cripple even enterprise-grade hardware. It’s therefore worth taking extra precautions. Your router may come with built-in DDoS mitigation – so make sure that you activate it. Additionally, you should exercise a little caution when you’re clicking on unfamiliar links. Even seemingly benign IP resolvers can be used to scrape your real IP.

Use App-Based MFA for Your Launcher Accounts

Multi-factor authentication will make it much harder for an attacker to get into your Steam account. The same goes for other essential services, like Battle.net and the Epic Games Store. App-based authentication tends to be more effective than a simple text message, and dedicated hardware is more effective still. When you need a special device to get into your account, you can be reasonably sure that only you will have access to it.

Guard Against AI-Powered Phishing & Social Engineering

With the help of Large Language models and other forms of modern AI, phishing has become more sophisticated. This is especially concerning for public figures whose images and voices are out there on the internet. Be wary of any unfamiliar software you’re asked to download. Cheap skins and other in-game goodies are often a Trojan horse for malware.

Secure Your “Last Mile” (The Home Router)

Your devices are only as secure as the weakest link in your home network. Make sure your home router uses a different password than the one it shipped with, and that it’s running the WPA3 protocol. In fact, avoiding wireless internet entirely might be advisable!