I've spent the past 16 years as an IT Manager. Just as general advice...

1) Keep your system up to date and reboot at least a couple of times per week.
2) Don't allow remote connections from anyone you don't personally know.
3) Use a password manager (Bitwarden is free, it is regularly audited by a third party security service, and overall it's excellent), audit your passwords to make sure that they haven't been exposed in data breaches, and do not share your passwords, not even with your mother.
4) Generate unique passwords for everything except for your password manager's master password and the e-mail address that you use for recovery and 2FA. Seriously, you're much safer not knowing what your other passwords are. They'll always be available and you won't have to type them in manually if you have them safely stored.
5) Multi-factor authentication is there to help you. Use it when you have the option.
6) www.haveibeenpwned.com
7) If you're concerned about public visibility of your IP address in multiplayer games, use a VPN service.

Steam titles are generally very safe. There were some exceptions with a few games from China and perhaps Russia that were removed from Steam maybe a year ago.

I rarely play outside of my friends' servers. So it's as secure as their setup/host.

reddit gamer moment

Originally posted by Zero HUVR:

Also you really think you are important enough for anyone to hack you?

^So this

A valid concern these days, since companies that get hacked have taken to only notifying there customers well after the event. Hacking attempts are common. So common that when I had games stolen in the middle of buying x-mas gifts, with a new password, Valve didn't bat an eye about issuing credit. Here's a reality check: Steam suffers low-level hacks all the time, and Steam is a backdoor into your account and every single game you use Steam to access. However, this is not Ylands (stored customer payment information in the clear on servers until it was patched), and it's not DS3.

The reality is that simply because you aren't important doesn't mean people aren't trying to hack you. Even paranoids have enemies. Yours have names like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Who was the "IT Manager" up there? The one who said use a password manager? Yeah, don't do that. Don't let your computer keep track of your passwords. Don't let your AVS store your passwords. Heck, don't store them on your computer at all. Make them random, keep them in a secure location, and change them frequently. For stuff you don't use very often, it's fine for you to have to look them up. If you use it all the time, memorize it. And if you installed Windows 11, congrats, you've got lots of official Spyware and a Keylogger to boot. It was bad in 10, but it's criminal in 11. Do some research on how to remove or block some of those "services." Let them call you paranoid; you won't be the one that spends 6 years trying to put their life back together because someone decided to be you.

For this game: it doesn't support large server, so it's easy to keep it small, private, and friendly. There'll be lots of exploiting, but you won't have to worry about the hacking.

Pretty sure this EXTREMELY rare, once in a decade exploit isn't something you have to be afraid of with every single game out there.

If you're this afraid of having your computer taken over, then you probably shouldn't use a computer to begin with. Because these exploits aren't just on the software level, but can be exploited on hardware level too, sometimes intentionally put in there in cooperation with national security agencies.

Microsoft patches these exploits in Windows all the time.

The only thing that made the Dark Souls 3 exploit unique is that it's a game this time, not an OS. Why would this game even have such code to begin with, that's the real question.

It's fairly safe to say that Valheim does not have such an exploit.

paranoia is a good thing. Apart from not having personal stuff on a vulnerable computer, the other option is to do your best to make it hard (update software, run firewall, defensive router, etc) and discourage attackers. Keep an eye on vulnerability / exploits in the wild (plenty of sites list them in real time as they are found) and if it affects software you use, get the patch or don't use it until the patch is out if possible, and so on. A little bit of extra time spent keeping your stuff safe will make the odds of being hit much lower. It can still happen, but if you get hit, there is an 85% or so chance that you were hacked remotely (eg, someone stole your personal info from your insurance company, bank, school, etc) than locally (broke into your PC). Do the best you can on your local PC and try not to worry about it too much, and if you are still concerned, not having anything useful on your PC is still better -- they can't steal what isn't there.

I can't tell you any technical stuff .. like probably most of the people here but.. this isn't a game where you play with total randoms since vanilla valheim has literally zero protection against ingame griefing stuff. It's not like dark souls where total strangers will join you due to desired ingame mechanics. You want your valheim servers to be pw protected.. so lets say it's safe if you use passwords and only let friends play with you.

If you meet some bored pro hacker you are done either way regardless which game with mp functions since most people don't use virtual machines and higher tier protection shells anyway.

Keep in mind that the dark souls RCE exploit only came out by chance and after many years. We also can't just compare the engine souls runs with .. with unity. People had the ability to destroy dark souls accounts since release of said games. It never was safe to play to begin with.

Stuff like this isn't the case in valheim. People can't just kill your account here. Finding RCE exploits isn't an easy task.. and even if one person had the ability to do stuff like this you would have to let him in in the first place. While in souls.. there is only alt f4 or offline mode.

What DS3 exploit?

Never heard of a single case where players were able to steal confidential information from another just because they were on the same server.

Edit: Ah, you were referring to Dark Souls it seems. Anyway, this game has nothing to do with Valheim, it uses another engine. In general, just because players can steal information in one game, doesn't mean that they can do it in another game. I understand your concerns tho.

Originally posted by Munin:

What DS3 exploit?

Never heard of a single case where players were able to steal confidential information from another just because they were on the same server.

You might have to google ds 3 RCE exploit. You will find all the articles.

nope, not safe at all; they gonna hack your credit cards from the game an chop yo dollar.

Dark Souls 3 is developed in a different engine and allows for random people to invade you, and for you to invade or join random people too.

Valheim is more focused on coop, you will not likely be playing with randoms but with friends. While I can't answer if Valheim is completely safe online, it most likely is and as long as you avoid playing with randos (which sucks on Valheim anyways), you'll be safe anywhere.

Jesus. There are literal millions of games. There was ONE that had vulnerability. Will you live in fear from now on just because of that one single game?
Also you really think you are important enough for anyone to hack you?