Dear Ultima Online Player,

It has come to our attention that some unscrupulous individuals have been attempting to gain access to UO accounts. They are almost always unsuccessful, but they have had limited success. In every case of a hacked account we've researched, it was the result of the player not protecting account info, email addresses or passwords as well as they could have been protected.

That being said, we are researching ways to improve account security. There have been some measures already taken, and some more will be taken soon. You'll notice some of these, and you won't notice others.

Keep in mind that no matter what changes we make, you are still your own best defense against hackers and scammers. Here are six things you can do to protect yourself:

1. Do not share your account and password information with anyone. The vast majority of account theft situations occur because a player trusted someone else with their account name and password, only to have that person later on abuse that trust.

2. Use a strong password on your UO account. Use a mixture of numbers, lower case letters, and upper case letters. Do not use your children's names, birthdates, or anything else that someone can potentially find out about you.

3. Be very careful downloading files from unknown sources, as these files can contain viruses, worms and Trojans that could potentially give someone to access your computer, and thus your UO account.

4. Protect your email password and email address. It's often a good idea, if you spend a lot of time on public forums where your email is in your profile, to use one email for public use and one email for business use (like UO, online retailers or other services that are linked to transactions). Keep in mind that information about yourself can often times be easily found by using popular search engines.

5. Do not use your UO account name as your pseudonym online, especially on UO related forums.

1. when logging into the game,
2. when logging into the account management pages,
3. when creating a MyUO account
4. when making a purchase from www.uogamecodes.com .

7. If you get a password reminder email, it does not mean your account has been hacked. It means that someone is abusing the “forgot password” system. However, if you have protected your email address, you are in no danger. It's a minor annoyance but poses no threat. As precaution, if you do receive an un-requested “forgot password” email, go ahead and change your password.

8. Use a quality virus checker and run it at least once a week, or even daily if you download a lot of software from a variety of sources.

We hope you find this information helpful in keeping your account safe and secure. See you in Sosaria!

• The UO Team