HabboDefense
Player Safety: Illegal Warfare
Writer: Player Safety Team
Graphics: saltpocalypse
Introduction: Illegal Warfare on Habbo (S189)
Habbo is a game where you control a little pixel avatar, chat and socialize. There is nothing more vanilla, more simplistic than that. Surely nothing bad exists in a game like this?
Unfortunately, bad exists in a few forms in our beloved game. Most pixels will play Habbo to make friends and have fun, though there are others who have more nefarious motives. In this article we will be discussing what we call ”Illegal Warfare”. What is Illegal Warfare you ask? In this article we plan to educate and inform you, our prized pixel reader, what it is, how to identify it and what you can do to protect yourself and others. Understanding and being able to identify illegal warfare practices will really highlight how damaging it can be, and why it is so important to protect your personal information online.
By the end of this article, you will understand what goes on in the dark corners of the hotel, and what to do if you see it. Our experienced Player Safety team will make sure of it!
Illegal Warfare Explained (ChristianM.0498)
As much as we want to stay safe online, there are several attacks that have been witnessed to take place even in the Habbo Community. Please take note of these following potential threats that you should be aware of:
If you have ever had an account you own be stolen or locked out, you have been a victim of a hack. Hacking can be defined loosely but in regards to Habbo, it would be someone has stolen your account. Consider trying to login after a long day, just to find out you can no longer access your account. You try to reset the password but to no avail – you have just been hacked. It can happen to more than just your Habbo account, think about your bank account for example.
Every website, even Habbo, runs on a server to keep people connected and the game turned on. Now, think of how much data is running back and forth on that server with different requests like people going to a different room, speaking in a chat, or even trading items. The server is designed to keep running with all these requests, but what happens when malicious people try to flood these requests to the point the server breaks down or stops functioning properly or all together?
A Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS, is commonly thrown around a term you may have heard of, and that now overloaded server is a common victim of a DDoS attack. In fact, in February 2024, Habbo experienced several waves of DDoS attacks that caused massive disruption in the stability of Habbo. These attacks can target individuals as well, when someone is able to access someone’s network, they can flood their network with so many requests it can cause their internet to even go down!
Another illegal warfare tactic is one that can become very personal, very quickly. Commonly called “Doxing” or “Doxxing”, it is essentially where Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of someone is spread online or out in the public to cause embarrassment or even for use in blackmail. This goes for both PII shared by you directly (through conversations) and indirect sharing of your PII (by linking PII to your account). In a game where you might want anonymity, someone could expose your real name, your age, your location, or so much more that you might even feel violated from this attack.
Reporting Illegal Warfare (Waterfireboy)
Let’s be clear: illegal warfare is never acceptable. You should take appropriate steps to report the offender in the event you are a victim of illegal warfare. Most importantly, immediately capture as much information related to the situation – you can do this by taking screenshots and noting down credible witnesses. These will serve as tangible evidence of the events that have occurred. You will likely need evidence later in the process, so make sure to keep the evidence somewhere you can find it back later. Never give in to any threats the offender is making. Giving in to threats will only allow the offender to continue their practices, while you can never be sure they’ll keep up to their promises (such as deleting your information). Instead, seek help from someone you trust and report the incident.
In the event you’ve become a victim of illegal warfare on the Habbo client, you should immediately report the user by clicking their Habbo avatar and clicking the ‘report’ button. Alternatively, click the ‘Help’ button at the top right of your screen, click ‘Someone is misbehaving’ and select the offender. Make sure to click all relevant messages and then report them based on what they’ve done. Reporting the user will also ignore them on Habbo, meaning they will not be able to trade or interact with you and you won’t see their messages. If the room host is in the room, you can also reach out to them and ask them to kick, mute or ban the offender.
Moreover, most Habbo organizations (such as militaries and agencies) strictly forbid illegal warfare. If you are a victim of illegal warfare within an organization, make sure to report it to a leader or moderator. They will likely be able to handle the issue and remove the offender from the organization.
Lastly, consider reaching out to your local police department if the issue is particularly severe, if you were harmed in real life or if you otherwise feel the offender’s actions may have violated your local laws. Please keep in mind laws between countries can differ, so something that is punishable in one country can be legal in another. Regardless, you can always reach out to your local police department to get help.
Protecting Yourself from Illegal Warfare (Ghello)
There are many ways through which you can protect yourself against becoming a victim of Illegal Warfare. These include preventative measures against hacking, doxxing as well as DDoS attacks.
In short, to prevent yourself from being hacked, you should make sure your account is secure. This is first of all done through the use of a strong password and through secure use of your email, as well as through an additional 2 Factor Verification method. Furthermore, the use of a VPN and antivirus software will give you that additional layer of protection. Lastly, it is important to keep your software up-to-date. For a more in-depth explanation of these, please check out the “Player Safety: Steps to Regain Your Online Safety After a Compromise” and “Account Security: The Power of Strong Passwords and Safe Email Usage” articles.
Even though DDoS attacks might be a less common method of an attack on an individual, it is still important to take preventative measures. The first way to protect yourself is through “Multi-Layered Protection”. This can be done through API and IP protection. These help control who can access your systems and block suspicious activity if necessary. Another great way to protect yourself is through Content Delivery Networks (CDN’s). CDN’s spread your traffic throughout multiple servers so that an attack on a single server is less damaging. Lastly, by rate-limiting you can restrict the amount of traffic that your network receives so that your server is less likely to get overloaded.
There are a few ways you can prevent being “doxxed’’. To start, it is important to be aware of what Personally Identifiable Information you share online. You should never share your full name, location, place of work, or social media accounts as these are easily traceable for those with bad intentions. This also means you should not link personal accounts (such as your personal X/Twitter & Spotify) to your Discord account or any other platform that is not for private use.
Furthermore, it is highly recommended to use secure wifi-networks, and to use a VPN when you are unable to do so. It is also highly recommended to hide domain registration information and to remove your personal information that has been collected by websites online, for example through Norton or Incogni. Lastly, using varying usernames, especially between personal accounts and “online life” accounts, makes it harder to trace other accounts you might have. The more information you give, the easier it will be for someone to dox you.
Conclusion (Ghello)
Sadly, Illegal Warfare is still common, despite the hard work of many involved in the battle against it. Nevertheless, we hope to have increased your awareness of what Illegal Warfare on Habbo entails, and how to protect yourself from it. Furthermore we have provided multiple ways through which Illegal Warfare can and should be reported.
The Player Safety team hopes this article has been informative. We hope that you now understand the term “Illegal Warfare’’ a little bit better, and how to deal with it if you ever encounter it.