Nottinghamshire Police warns gamers about cyber crime and gives expert advice from National Cyber Security Centre.

Gamers are being urged to improve their cyber security to reduce the risk of being hacked.

Nottinghamshire Police is encouraging gamers to take a few preventive steps to make it harder for cyber criminals to access their data.

It comes following a rise in reports of online accounts being hacked, with victims losing thousands of pounds as a result.

A Nottinghamshire-based gamer lost more than £2,000 and another victim in East Midlands lost £10,000.

Criminals have been exploiting out-of-date mods across the country, leading to devices being compromised with malware accounts being hijacked and digital assets lost.

Advice by the National Cyber Security Centre to prevent gaming accounts from being hijacked includes keeping the devices and applications up to date.

Using strong passwords and turning on the two-step verification is essential as well as being mindful of the information shared online.

When downloading or buying games use official sources and stores and don’t follow instructions from other players as it can be a cyber attack.

As sixty percent of UK adults playing video games on console, desktop or smartphone devices, the gaming industry has increasingly come under attack from hackers.

Nottinghamshire Police cyber protect officer Kirsty Jackson said: “A lot of game distributors will not offer support if you have been using third party services to commence trades and link your accounts as these fall outside of their terms and conditions.

“It’s really important that you are cautious when using these services especially if another player ask you to sign up to these services. Genuine online services won’t require that you complete a trade to be able to login to those platforms or ask you to give your 2-step verification code to anyone else.”

To check if an online account has been hacked, people should look for being unable to log into their accounts, a change to security settings and unrecognisable messages and notifications.

One should also check logins or attempts from strange locations or times and unauthorised money transferred.