Curse

Kaleban · Dec 14, 2009, 12:01 PM // 12:01

How difficult would it be to keep an electronic "watermark" on a person's account?

From everything I've read, these accounts are being hacked/stolen by others with different IP addresses, service providers, countries of origin etc.

I'm not up to date on network security, but surely there must be a way to verify that the account being logged into comes from the same computer?

If that's too difficult, then why not just have a backup? It can't be difficult to store an account's major details, like armor sets (or parts thereof) and other items in a simple .ini file on ANet's servers. Perhaps each account is backed up once a week, if an account hack is claimed, the person e-mailing or calling in has to provide their original CD-key? Once a person proves ownership, the account is reverted.

Or maybe there shouldn't be two companies both with security holes handling online transactions for real money if they can't handle game account hacks. In my time playing WoW, there were a couple of attempts to hack my account, and Blizzard was VERY aggressive in tracking down the culprit and restoring my account, even items!

Customer service and communication is an extremely important issue for any game developer, moreso for those that operate online games, especially those who handle online monetary transactions, AND ANet/NCSoft have failed miserably in this respect.

Smarty · Dec 14, 2009, 02:13 PM // 14:13

Came across this whilst browsing AionSource - note the bolded part, very interesting if true:

Quote:

Apparently it's possible for your master account to be hacked and all your game passwords to be changed without you even logging in to the game, visiting any website or anything of the sort, as I just found out.

My Guild Wars, NC Soft master account and Aion account have all had their passwords changed with NO contact from NC Soft to verify any of these things happening. I'm very strict about my game accounts, I even have a seperate gaming PC that I have my games on and nothing else so they are kept away from anything dodgy, I live alone so no one can access my PC and I never log in using another PC. I haven't even logged into any of the accounts mentioned for at least a few weeks but suddenly today I get an email telling me my password has been changed without my consent. How hard is it to send out a confirmation email before changing passwords? Answer - IT'S NOT!!!

This would be bad enough, but to make matters worse apparently NC Soft couldn't care less about customer support as they don't even provide a phone support line for this kind of thing, you just have to use the amazingly crap 'support' website to 'ask a question' and send them an email which will probably take days to get answered if ever.

Massive security failure NC Soft, absolutely appaling.

Source: http://www.aionsource.com/forum/aion...ml#post1898338.

Miscreant_Moon · Dec 14, 2009, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Tullzinski · Dec 14, 2009, 03:48 PM // 15:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miscreant_Moon

But remember, according to ArenaNet, NCSoft DOESN'T have any security issues. *smirk*

It is worse than that. The NCsoft Master Account hub is referred to as having an added level of security! LOL! (see below) If you go to the Guild Wars support section and click on account security you are directed to Gaile's page that contains the below item:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:...count_Security
Keep your email secure.
If someone gains access to your email account, immediately change your Guild Wars user name and password. (If you can't get access for some reason, get in touch with support right away. If your game account is bound to an NCsoft Master Account, you are not able to change your Guild Wars user name but you can protect your account by changing your GW game password from within the NCsoft Master Account hub. And you can change the email address associated with your NCsoft Master Account (and your games) at any time. Many players feel that having an NCsoft Master Account adds another level of security to the game's security.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

How many more examples have to be provided by the community to prove that this is indeed a weak spot. At a minimum NCsoft should disable the password reset function.

One would think that the Master Acount hub password reset function was added to reduce the need for support personel to assist players in resetting forgotten passwords. This automated feature would likely save them money by reducing the amount of support tickets needing hands on intervention.

I wonder how that is working out for NCsoft? With an increase of hacked accounts accross NCsoft games linked to the Master hub, it seems like any cost reductions have not been realized by NCsoft due to the increase of tickets dealing with stolen accounts. Stolen account tickets have to be more time consuming/costly to deal with than password resets.

For all the added security ideas presented here, one is missing; disabling the reset feature at the NCsoft Master Hub. This is simple to accomplish, the cheapest and the quickest of any of the security measures presented. The only drawback would be that people in need of a password reset would have to open a support ticket and provide a cd key.

Do this for three months and see if the "my account was hacked" tickets are reduced. If a reduction, than the problem is identified and a long term solution should be researched and implemented. If not then publish the findings and tell everyone it is NOT the problem and continue to blame the users.

Edit: Not sure how hard it would be to require the input of a valid CD key when reseting the password at the Master hub ...any clues???

Another Felldspar · Dec 14, 2009, 03:55 PM // 15:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nerel

The numbers of the players threatening to walk is always far too low, the number of players who actually carry out the threat are insignificant. And in GW's case, they're looking more at new players to expand their base far more than player retention, or at least, they should be. Even for a smaller game (like GW) such threats could be, at best, chuckle worthy.

I can say that, in my case at least, this isn't a threat of a boycott. It's simply smart consumerism. I've bought many extras for the game from storage panels, to character slots, to gift accounts for family members so that they can play the game with me, but I won't spend more money on something that I don't feel is secure. Unless A-Net is willing to tell me that they and NCSoft are both working on the security issues I won't spend more money with them.

I am a person with discretionary income. I had planned to spend quite a few holiday dollars bringing my niece into the GW family play this season, but that won't be happening. Companies spend thousands of dollars on marketing advice and knowing how to appeal to their consumers. I'm just giving them the same information they pay for in other instances.

Gaile Grey has said on her support page that dealing with one hacked account is more costly for the company than the profit derived from several games sold. So, it makes business sense for them to increase security too.

I am willing to spend money on increased security features. I understand that the game/expansions/extras that I've purchased to date were purchased with the existing level of security.

the_jos · Dec 14, 2009, 04:36 PM // 16:36

Ok, I'm going to share some additional thoughts on this subject.

Whatever A-net/NCSoft does, they cannot in any way protect credentials that are used somewhere else.

So how can they improve GW security?
This is a hard question. For full security I would limit IP range and send out tokens. Or secure certificates. This is how many banking applications work (and some large games provide tokens).
Would I do this for a game like GW? No! It will never pay back, expenses are too high.
Sure, people say they will buy additional security. But that number is rather limited and would have additional support issues. From economics perspective this is a bad choice. For banking it works because banks need to pay stolen money back. Once prevented compromise and they have their investment back, easily. The worst that can happen with an online game is lost of trust of (a few) customers. Might sound harsh but it's true, specially for a pay once play 'forever' game.

Next step down would be a detection of strange behaviour.
This is hard to implement and might cause some latency issues at login for customers. Just check if the account is already logged in.
If not then log in. If logged in check IP address of user logged in and the new connection. If the same it's a reconnect, so proceed.
If the user is logged in and the IP is not the same, present a message on the screen for let's say 5 minutes. After time is up bring down old connection and enter from new IP (I forget to turn off game sometimes when visiting friends with my laptop). This would prevent kicking people from the game.

Within this detection some additional checking could be done.
I think it's against EULA to share accounts.
So A-net could make a check on someone logging in from IP A while previously logged in from IP B.
If IP A is located in the US and IP B in Europe it's very unlikely that the account can be accessed within 5 hours from both A and B.
This would limit the attack base to a region near the hacker/gold seller.
There are some ways to spoof IP addresses but I don't think those would work well for hackers/gold sellers, since they also need to make a profit.

The last thing is unusual behaviour from an IP address.
If a certain address uses a huge number of logins to various accounts it's suspect.

But we are talking about intrusion detection here which is a rather new field of work and many large businesses fail at it.
And I'm not sure where the responsibility lies, at A-net or NCSoft.

However, this is for the GW account.
This excludes the NCSoft account, which seems to be part of the problem from the various messages I see here.
We know one thing of it, the e-mail address cannot be changed. And it might be difficult to implement this. And it's out of reach for A-net for sure.

My first impression is that the NCSoft account must have been accessible to the hacker/gold seller. How would it be possible to request a password reset otherwise? (well I can think of some ways but I guess a-net is aware of those methods and covered them).

Given the address cannot be changed any implementation that requires feedback from the user would not work. I might register with [email protected] and the service they provide might discontinue. Or all of a sudden my free e-mail provider charges money and I change accounts because I don't want to pay.
So the e-mail address I used to register might not be accessible, meaning I cannot change the password even when I know the credentials.

But there are things that look doable.
For example, if a certain IP address accesses a high number of accounts or requests a reset for many passwords is suspect for sure.
Even if those requests are done over a long period of time.
Not that many people have 10+ accounts.
Problem here is that this is easily worked around with a proxy or something like TOR. The request goes to the original e-mail address, so it cannot be filtered on that either.

On the site of the NCSoft account not much can be done in short time. The master e-mail cannot be changed. Filtering is hard. Detection of suspect behaviour is hard. Just ask forum admins how hard it can be to keep certain people out and you know a little about fighting people who are not there to troll but are acually making money with what they do.

So for the NCSoft account responsibility is mainly with the user.
The link between this account and GW cannot be broken once made, it would mess up a lot.
Let's assume the e-mail address can be changed. Would this help?
Only if that e-mail address is not used anywhere else. Else it's just a matter of time before people will try to enter the account again.

What could help is if NCSoft would release tokens or certificates for their website. Their userbase is larger than only the GW users. Even ask a contribution, once a year or once every 3 or 6 months. Fail to pay and your account will be reverted to 'default' security. Pay again and your account will be linked to the token again. Don't drop the token in your milk or you cannot change your NCSoft stuff for a couple of days/weeks.
Knowledge is in the market, many companies issue tokens or certificates for websites, specially in the financial world.

Edit: this last part does not make the GW account more secure than it's now.
People can enter it already before they can reset the password. They reset to lock the legitimate user out, not to access the account!

IlikeGW · Dec 14, 2009, 04:57 PM // 16:57

They should use a unique log-in name, not email address.

They should also hold at least one character backup that is from before the last time the password is changed.

SirJackassIII · Dec 14, 2009, 04:59 PM // 16:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaleban

How difficult would it be to keep an electronic "watermark" on a person's account?

From everything I've read, these accounts are being hacked/stolen by others with different IP addresses, service providers, countries of origin etc.

I'm not up to date on network security, but surely there must be a way to verify that the account being logged into comes from the same computer?

There is. All of which can be circumvented/are not secure enough. It's the first option in the poll, IP/MAC check. The IP check fails due to the fact many people have Dynamic IP's, might play from different computers and IP's can be spoofed. MAC adresses are slightly more secure and only provide a problem for people who play on different computers or have several accounts (if ANet checks 1 MAC/account). However, it is still possible for Hackers to find out the MAC address and spoof it, rendering that useless as well.
Block IP's from outside your country? Use a proxy.

Quote:

If that's too difficult, then why not just have a backup? It can't be difficult to store an account's major details, like armor sets (or parts thereof) and other items in a simple .ini file on ANet's servers. Perhaps each account is backed up once a week, if an account hack is claimed, the person e-mailing or calling in has to provide their original CD-key? Once a person proves ownership, the account is reverted.

Yeah...no. ANet stores all Data in a database using BLOBs. The problem here is likely the persistency and consistency. To put it simply, each "item" may only exist once. Suppose you find a "sword" and someone else finds the same sword with the same stats, it still wouldn't be the same sword to the Database, where each item would require a unique identifier. Now, if ANet restores the account, they can't just revert it back, as you might have traded with someone or the hacker traded your items, which would cause that "sword" to appear twice in the database. This likely wouldn't cause a crash, as ANet probably put in some security to prevent that from happening, but it still wouldn't be good. If account reverting was an easy thing to do, they probably would have implemented it already.

Shadowmoon · Dec 14, 2009, 05:13 PM // 17:13

All i would want is Character sercurity, I don't care about Items that much. Yes is sucks that items are lost, but at least least you still have your character AND most important of all your HoM.
I can personally say if i was hacked, and my characters were deleted and i lost the thousands of hours of work on my HoM, i would not buy GW2, the stigma of losing so much would be too great.
I believe that should be a priority, seeing how we had 3 years of just working on the HoM before any hope of gw2.

JimmyNeutron · Dec 14, 2009, 07:42 PM // 19:42

That's a RSA token that rotates to a different six digit # every minute. You combine your unique 4 pin # + the RSA token # = password.

Even if someone has your pin #, they would not be able to break into your account because they also need the RSA token #. In addition, each RSA token is unique and ties into your account only. So grabbing and using someone elses RSA token # will not work for your account.

Lastly, only way to make ANET do anything about it is to voice your anger with

YOUR WALLET aka $$$. Until they see a big decline in sales and online purchases, they don't give a crap about you or the community because if they did, they would've disable the password reset already, right??????????????

Do you see the password reset being disable? No.
Do you see them modifying it so it requires an authentication that is sent to your register email address? No.

STOP BUYING ANYTHING RELATED TO ANET/GW/AION/ETC... UNTIL IT IS FIX!!!!!!
SPREAD THE WORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aleta · Dec 14, 2009, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Well after reading the latest I went over and took all my billing info out of my Aion master account. And I had really wanted to see Aion's Christmas but instead I think I might be better off uninstalling GW and Aion and play EQ2 only.

And no way am I going near GW2.

Perkunas · Dec 15, 2009, 04:33 AM // 04:33

Looking at the Poll now, it looks like the main concern is recovery and not prevention. Why is this?

zwei2stein · Dec 15, 2009, 07:43 AM // 07:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perkunas

Looking at the Poll now, it looks like the main concern is recovery and not prevention. Why is this?

Prevention method votes actually add up to show that prevention is more prefered.

And in any case, this is multiple choice poll. I, for one, voted for two prevention methods and one restore method.

Mostly because i realize that security is as strong as its weakest link: Plaync account and linked account password changes in recent 'hack wave'. If security feature can be bypased in similar way, they are pointless.

You can have "cia quality" password, ip lock and hw token generator, but if plaync allows you to change ip lock and hw token link the same way it allows password chage, well those features might as well not exist.

On the other hand, account restore would solve exactly what people want: Everyone is worried about loosing characters and all the hard work and progress first and foremost. You could have account breach, but it will not affect you.

Riot Narita · Dec 15, 2009, 09:24 AM // 09:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perkunas

Looking at the Poll now, it looks like the main concern is recovery and not prevention. Why is this?

You can fix (prevent) known risks. But you can never be sure that a new vulnerability will not emerge in future. Also, even people who are careful about security can make mistakes.

So it's good to have measures to limit damage as well

Smarty · Dec 15, 2009, 09:29 AM // 09:29

I'm more worried about recovery rather than prevention because at least that's a surefire guarantee of not losing your character due to your own or the company's carelessness, and is IMO the more realistic option when it comes to actually getting the current level of "security" changed - it's an additional extra that they could charge us for, rather than being something they'd have to spend time and money developing for free. As long as I'm guaranteed to have my main there to link to GW2, that'll do me where GW1 security is concerned.

GW2, on the other hand... I'm really not looking forward to having to link that to NCsoft to get rewards from GW1.

I hope they come up with another way of sorting out the HoM.

Nerel · Dec 15, 2009, 09:48 AM // 09:48

Recovery options lend themselves to abuse by the unscrupulous, and tend to be expensive to implement as they would require a not insignificant amount of investigation work from the support staff.

I favor better account security, certainly an email confirmation BEFORE changing the password on your account, and probably the same for an attempted log in from outside of your geographic IP range. I really don't see GW2 going with an optional Token device, though it might be nice, I fear the expense of implementing it would make it unreasonable to expect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ayelet Feldspar

Unless A-Net is willing to tell me that they and NCSoft are both working on the security issues I won't spend more money with them.

I'm sure they'd be willing to tell that they are working on security issues, in just the same way they're willing to tell you we'll be getting skill balancing bimonthly (every two months). Talk is cheap, unfortunately.

the_jos · Dec 15, 2009, 10:30 AM // 10:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perkunas

Looking at the Poll now, it looks like the main concern is recovery and not prevention. Why is this?

Recovery and prevention work different.
Prevention is lowering the chance that something is going to happen.
Recovery means that when something happens it can be restored to the original situation (or something similar).
Adding a lock to the door will prevent someone from entering and stealing stuff. It will not prevent a fire to destroy the same stuff.
The right insurance will cover both loss by fire and by burglary.

So recovery deals with all situations in all circumstances while prevention will only lower the chance of something specific to happen.
This is why people prefer recovery and not prevention.

Shanaeri Rynale · Dec 15, 2009, 10:49 AM // 10:49

And in this case 'recovery' (which need'nt include item restoration) I.e preventing your account being trashed once someone bad has got in is firmly in the court of Anet not NCsoft....

Nerel · Dec 15, 2009, 11:07 AM // 11:07

You mean to say, Recovery options require no additional effort or inconvenience on behalf of the user, no extra security steps to worry about... if something goes wrong Big Brother will fix everything?

Shanaeri Rynale · Dec 15, 2009, 11:18 AM // 11:18

No. Take for example perfect world, which is a free to use (nothing to pay unless you want non game changing shinies)

Characters remain on the server for a week after you delete them. You are stopped from doing any account-sensitive actions (such as trading items or accessing storage) for about a minute after you log in, and you can put a separate password on the storage itself. Some of the more valuable items, are by default flagged as undroppable and untradable, and you have to go through a waiting period to unflag them.

All the above would help no end in the event of someone getting in. There's no need for big brother to fix anything for you.

As i've said before. There are simple changes that can be done to at least alleivate things but apart from changing the warning about account security from white text to red text nothing has been done, neither have threads like this and on other sites over the internet even been acknowledged by Anet.

Part of me thinks Anet would have been better spent sorting this issue out than signing a 1000 odd xmas cards. Bah Humbug