Hacks happen. It's a fact of life, right? All the same, when hacks happen it's somewhat shocking. Today, Ubisoft (the gaming company) discovered that some user accounts have been hacked. The company is urging anyone that has a Ubisoft account to change password information as quickly as possible.

Ubisoft's accounts were hacked and accessed yesterday, and the gaming company has learned that hackers have successfully snagged many personal user details. What kinds of details? The usual user names, emails, addresses, and other important information. Along with those stolen details were user passwords, which is why Ubisoft is urging users to change passwords as quickly as possible.

What Hasn't Been Lost

Thankfully, Ubisoft has confirmed that no personal payment information was stored in the company's hacked database, so your credit card details are safe if you are a Ubisoft user. Ubisoft is taking every step to secure the site, find the hacker, and protect user data. However, it's still best to make sure that your password is effectively changed.

Not sure how to change your password? It's getting tougher to create a password now, but you can still follow these important steps:

1. Choose a password that you don't use for anything else.
2. Never use a phone number of address as a password.
3. Go for that alphanumeric combination.
4. If two-step authentication is available, make sure to take advantage of this extra security feature.

Even though no payment information has been snagged through the Ubisoft database, it still pays to make sure that your accounts elsewhere are safe. If one of the best gaming companies out there can be successfully hacked, all of your other accounts are susceptible too. In fact, WordPress (the popular blogging platform) was recently hacked as well. So, how can you protect payment details when using websites?

Protecting Payment Details

One of the best ways to make sure that your payment information is not captured is to use a service like PayPal to make any payments. If you do not leave any money in your PayPal account, it is less likely that your personal payment details will be obtained. If a site doesn't accept PayPal, find out where your payment details will be stored.

Any company that doesn't have a secure payment information system should be avoided if possible. If this isn't possible, see if you can pay via phone or in some other manner. When a company stores your payment details, you are always at risk for a possible hack - not that it matters that much. Sure, a payment theft is annoying, but most banks will back you up. However, again, none of this pertains to what recently happened with Ubisoft.

User payment information is safe, and the company has worked to restore the system. The only things that a hacker may have obtained are scores, user details like addresses, phone numbers, and emails, and password combinations (if you use the same password elsewhere, make sure to change that too!). Otherwise, you are completely safe to use Ubisoft once again without fear.