Agent Insights Ep 62: Hack Rumors

Hello everyone. Flint here, to talk about something I think should be addressed.

Every so often, I see someone claim that a major hack will occur, which makes people very anxious and generally causes panic. For instance, lately, we've been hearing rumors about a supposed "Halloween Hack", where AJ will apparently be "hacked" on Halloween and because of this you should not play the game on Halloween. There have been other rumors in the past about big hacks that affect lots of players, and even a few that happen to have a grain of truth to them. A lot of "big hacks" are just rumors and panic, though, so I thought it'd be important for you to know about how hacks and hackers work.

First off, hackers aren't magic and are only capable of so much. They can't just magic their way into AJHQ and start messing with stuff. They also can't press a button and see everyone's username and password. As a non-hacker and a non-coder, I know very little about how hacking works, but I do know that it takes effort, and hackers can't just wave their magic hacker wands and instantly gain access to the entirety of Animal Jam. If your mind goes to these scenarios when you hear "hack", you should rest assured that they won't happen.

Second off, hacking is difficult. You need to know how to hack stuff, and also know how to bypass all of the security measures that AJ has implemented. Most people do not know how to do this. If they can "hack" at all, they either mean tricking people into entering their password into a phishing website, or running lines of code they found on the internet somewhere that have limited function. Real hackers do of course exist, but, as I will cover in my next point, they don't usually target online children's games.

Thirdly, actually skilled hackers that are able to breach AJ's defenses are few in number. Of those that hack maliciously, most of them are focused on banks, governmental things, stores, and popular games. Hackers who target sites maliciously will usually go for big, juicy targets, and not a children's game that isn't connected to any real money or interesting information. Hacking is also a serious crime, and any hacker that could hack AJ most likely thinks it isn't worth it to risk going to prison.

You may remember the Agent Insights post that was put out about the hacked AJ Outfitters link a few months ago. Hacks like these can occur, but as far as we know, that hack is the only one of its kind that we've had for a long while. Additionally, this hack was resolved within a few hours and players would only be affected by it if they clicked on the link. You may also have heard of people who have gotten "hacked" without entering their password into a generator. While this can occur, usually hackers only bother with famous people, and if your account was compromised otherwise, it's probably because your password was too easy to guess.

In summary, don't worry about baseless fantastical rumors. Hackers that are both able to hack Animal Jam and actually want to hack Animal Jam are exceedingly rare. On the off-chance that there is some great big "hack" that is going to affect the entire game, it is incredibly unlikely that anyone's individual accounts would be at risk. If you have a good password, don't tell it to anyone, and don't enter it in weird places, you should be fine.