Fortnite Hacking: Players of Epic Games' video game frustrated by account breaches

CARY, N.C. -- Some players of Fortnite, the popular video game produced by Epic Games, are complaining of account hacking and limited options to prevent it. Fortnite, which as of January had 45 million players, was developed by Epic Games in Cary, N.C..

Among those in love with the international online sensation is the 10-year-old son of Wake Forest, N.C., resident Jeff Cash.

"He loves it. Plays it all the time online with his buddies," Cash said.

The father said his son had built up nearly 100 points, which is almost like cash in the Fortnite world.

But a few weeks after playing with another online player, the boy noticed something.

"The levels he had accrued and built up to basically went away. It was back down to zero for no reason. He got online, started playing with a kid, recognized his screen name. The kid then said he had hacked his account, admitted to hacking his account," Cash said.

But that wasn't the worst part.

"My debit card was associated with it, and there had been money siphoned from that account," Cash said.

So Cash went online to try to figure out how to get Epic Games to catch the hacker and possibly get the hundreds of missing dollars back.

At first, he Googled "Fortnite account hack." He was surprised.

"When I went online and started researching I did notice that a lot of other people were going through what we were going through," Cash said.

Even Epic's own forums are overflowing with people complaining about losing money to Fortnite hacking. But Cash says he soon became weary of trying to get help on Epic's website. Days after emailing and leaving a voicemail, he still hadn't been contacted by a human.

"Never. Not one time. And that was the most frustrating part," he said.

So he drove to nearby Cary and walked into Epic's headquarters. But there was still no human at the front desk. Instead, he had to use a house phone.

He says the woman who answered was nice but could only recommend he do what he had already done.

So he called his local TV station, WTVD, in Raleigh. Four minutes after an email was sent to the Epic media line, a representative responded. Within an hour, that Epic representative was corresponding with Cash, who said he was relieved.

"I've gotten a response from the company," he said. "They are working on it, which makes me feel a little better. The rapid response thanks to you guys kind of kicked things into high gear."

But he says he still feels sorry for all the other people who have fallen victim to Fortnite hacking. He says Epic needs to better police the popular game.

"They have a lot of work to do, you know, still left to do with regards to protecting accounts and other kids and other people going through this exact same thing," Cash said.

Epic offered tips and links they say should help Fortnite players protect their accounts and contact the company when there is a problem.

• We are aware of attacks intended to compromise player accounts. These issues have our full attention, and addressing them is our highest priority.
• Most issues of account compromise result from the use of shared or weak passwords. There are also phishing attempts and scam websites offering free or discounted V-bucks (in-game currency). All of these websites and offers are fake, and players absolutely need to avoid them. We are going after those websites and hackers.
• Friend Codes in Save the World Founder's Packs were the main reason that accounts were being compromised. As of yesterday, the Founder's Packs that include Friend Codes are no longer available in the store.
• In order to accelerate our response time to support requests, we have grown our support team by 7x since December, and are working to double it again.
• To keep accounts safe, we ask all players to use Multi-Factor Authentication on their accounts. They can find the steps to enable MFA here.