Fortnite

Username Swear words and inappropriate words are blocked as usernames and you can't use special characters to substitute letters to create usernames, for example Sh!thead.

Password Passwords must be 7+ characters long and contain at least 1 number and 1 letter although there are no complexity settings for the password, it can be as simple as 1234pass which makes the account very insecure and easy to hack. It is imperative that multi factor authentication is used to further protect an account.

Multi Factor Authentication Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) also known as two factor authentication (2FA) can be enabled with the use of an authenticator app or a code sent to an email address or SMS message, This is highly recommended as there is no password complexity requirements and very insecure easy to hack passwords can be created.

Chat is one of the main areas of concern and with Fortnite they can use voice chat and also online screen chat. Both areas present danger to children and as such it is recommended that guidance is given to children prior to playing online games with chat enabled. Children need to understand what constitutes personal information and why they should not give away any personal information.

They should also understand what to do if they see or hear anything that makes them feel uncomfortable, hurt, threatened or unsafe and this you will have something in place should this happen. If you ban them from the game because this happens then the next time it happens with this or another game they will be very hesitant in communicating that with you. Actions such as reporting users or blocking users can be taken.

They should also understand that it is not always children they will be talking or playing with.

This is from the NSPCC site –

By ESRB, Fortnite is rated T which stands for Teen.

This is mainly because of the violence and the player-to-player interactions.

Communications with other players, especially ones who users might not know, can result in foul language, hence the age rating.

PEGI’s age rating of 12 aligns with ESRB’s rating.

Compared to other games, Fortnite does not show gory or bloody visuals.

The only violence involved is in killing other players in order to win the game, which might raise concerns for some parents on how they children might be affected by this.

As per most apps and games there is pretty much no age verification other than entering a date of birth when you create your account. Obviously children should not enter their real date of birth but use a fake date of birth that they can remember, for instance if they were born on 1/4/2009 then use the same year but change the day and month such as 1/1/2009 or something similar. This is just in case there is a data breach as your child will then not have entered their real date of birth.

The actual epic games hack occurred sometime in late 2018. CheckPoint found the security flaw and reported it to Epic Games in November of 2018. However, it wasn’t until  January of 2019 that Epic Games acknowledged the incident and repaired the vulnerability. They never confirmed the number of victims, but there are more than 200 million Fortnite players online, and security officials assume that all of them were breached.

While Fortnite does not use any way to confirm users names or ages it does send a code to the email address being used when setting up an account, although email addresses can easily be obtained quite anonymously, therefore we would warn that it would be quite easy for a user to set up an anonymous account.

Fortnite also has an anonymous mode.

To avoid unnecessary toxicity from unpleasant players, users can now activate the Fortnite Anonymous mode to hide their identities while playing the game. Turning this mode on will replace the player’s username with “Anonymous.”

It should be noted, however, that if a player attempts to submit a report against an “Anonymous” player, the actual username will still be attached.

Overall Fortnite is a safe game for children to play and has an appropriate age rating, we wrote a blog on why lower age rated games are not necessarily safer for children – Roblox VS Fortnite – A Parents Perspective on why lower age rated games are not always safer for children  Roblox VS Fortnite – A Parents Perspective on why lower age rated games are not always safer for children… – iNet Guardian Blog

Again one of the best pieces of advice we have is watch your children playing the game, I know our children love it when we watch them play but also play with them, they will enjoy it immensely.