Several Genshin Impact players revealed on the game's Reddit page that the game developers 'leaked' some of their personal information, primarily their contact numbers, these past few weeks due to the game's two-factor authentication on password recovery.
Probably one of 2020's most successful games, the fantasy open world action role-playing game has taken the gaming scene by storm after it arrived last September 2020 to various consoles and game devices, mostly played on mobile phones, gadgets, and the PC.
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Leaked numbers and other compromised information
Millions of gamers worldwide have tried and tested the game, creating a certain following for them.
But first posted by username skydtlee on the Genshin Impact Reddit page, the user mentioned that upon sending a verification code from verifying the accounts to recover their forgotten passwords to the players' email addresses would result in a "partially censored" viewing of their email ads. But when linked to their mobile phone numbers, it can be fully seen. Trying different random usernames that could be a potential Genshin Impact account may leak the linked mobile number on it.
Testimonies from the other players were also seen on the Reddit page. They have the same experience of seeing their leaked phone numbers on the game screen. This caused a lot of worries from the players. Their personal information might be used in various transactions or could be used in scams that are growing rapidly worldwide, forcing the players to change numbers once they deal with it, or just for safety reasons if they already linked their numbers.
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Luckily, some posts on the Reddit page seem to confirm MiHoYo, the game's developer, already fixed the issue. Some tried and tested their usernames with their mobile numbers, and emails are now covered.
User TiltOnPlay on Reddit somehow confirmed this by editing his post that first mentioned the issue that he also encountered. It stated that after trying to unlink the number and linking it again, a portion of the number is now asterisked. Due to safety, however, he will keep his number unlinked.
The Growing Use of the Two-Factor Authentication
With Genshin Impact doing their best to protect the players from fraud and other possible issues, their developers utilized two-way or two-factor authentication for their password recovery system. This security system provides some sort of "a password within a password" system, especially if you log in using another device. After entering your password, you will need to re-confirm it, either on the same device or another device, depending on where your email or mobile number is logged in or registered.
Two-factor authentication is widely used in social media. Facebook, for example, has the option to link your account to your mobile phone number. The user must either confirm the login attempt to their account, or send a code to the linked mobile number that Facebook will require to log in. This step was made by the social media giant as the rise of fake accounts and fake news on the site continues. Also, various account hacking was reported in the past years up until today.
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