Curse

Jetdoc · May 13, 2008, 03:49 AM // 03:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mac Sidewinder

I was just wondering Jetdoc, if the hacker changed your password....how did you change it back to something you know? I've never used the change password feature from the main screen but doesn't it make you put in a valid old password first before it accepts a new one?

In the main login screen, there is a button that says "reset password". Just click on that and it wipes out your password and assigns you a new temporary one (and e-mails the temporary one to your e-mail address).

You then can re-login in with the new temporary one and change your password.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

Jetdoc, if you know the exact time that you were hacked, send that info to Anet, they'll be able to check what IP addresses were logged into the account in that time of day, and possibly be able to do SOMETHING to stop it.

I just PM'd all the information to Regina. Once she reads it (hopefully she does), I'll send it to A-Net's technical support if she thinks that is best.

I wonder if Gaile would be interested in something like this in her new role...

Mac Sidewinder · May 13, 2008, 04:05 AM // 04:05

ahh never knew that. That kind of sucks for me since I no longer have my old email account that I originally had when I first created my account. Anyone know if you can change the email information?

Bront · May 13, 2008, 04:06 AM // 04:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adja1005

Anyone else kind of pissed off at the lack of acknowledgement about this recent surge in threads concerning hacked accounts? I've not seen anyone from Anet, Regina specifically, comment about what they intend to do or what they are doing to combat these hackers.

Perhaps Regina could grace us with her presence and make some comment about these recent events? Afterall isn't that her job?

Also good job on saving you're account, you lost Z-Keys but atleast you have some items to sell and hopefully make up for it!

Actualy, she did comment on it in the previous thread. They are apparently aware of the surge of them, suggested you send her any info, and open a ticket with support on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetdoc

I just PM'd all the information to Regina. Once she reads it (hopefully she does), I'll send it to A-Net's technical support if she thinks that is best.

I wonder if Gaile would be interested in something like this in her new role...

Might be good to call support and open a trouble ticket on this. It's a big deal.

slowerpoke · May 13, 2008, 04:11 AM // 04:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetdoc

That's actually something I omitted....once I got kicked out of AB, GW asked me if I wanted to attempt to reconnect...and it failed. That's when I got the "you lost your internet connection" message. It was right after that when I got the "your password is invalid" message.

Your explanation is plausible...the hacker could be forcing you out, and intercepting the reconnect packets (which may also have your account name and password information encoded in it).

I really hope its not true.

if so, anyones account can be hacked easily. they dont even need your email/password, just being in the same zone is enough.

please make sure to contact them about it and mention other attacks within the past few weeks, maybe use my description if you want. more info they have the faster its fixed

HuntMaster Avatar · May 13, 2008, 04:21 AM // 04:21

How can a hacker change a password without access to the email to confirm it? How can we safe guard against this? Doesnt make sense if you have to have access to the persons email in order to confirm, or even see the password. I dont see how a hacker could do it.

It also sounds like these hackers using this program can only hack active accounts, so now would be a great time to take a break and play something else, just keep reading forums to see when its be resolved. Then come back. Anet should stop all events and make taking a break a good thing without missing anything, Other wise they are basically providing hackers with opportunities.

I'm going to look online to see if there are any programs like this, If there are I will come back here and see if the mods can contact anet and expose the program. The more we know the better we can protect ourselves.

actually, I take that back, I dont wanna risk anything by looking at a site, But googling guild wars account hacker and guildwars hacks brings up tons of stuff. Anet needs to look into this. There is also a video on youtube, and a walk through on google on how to hack an account. Seems no matter what no one is gonna be safe.

Problem is, the hackers are being stopped AFTER they hack accounts, which screws players who wont get their stuff back, Which i find very unfair. Anet could replace everything lost, some other games do that very thing. Anet is really slippin on this.

Pleikki · May 13, 2008, 04:34 AM // 04:34

Glad you didnt lose anything else jetdog. my friend lost +200e and some minis and hacker salvaged his obsi to mats

TideSwayer · May 13, 2008, 04:38 AM // 04:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by HuntMaster Avatar

How can a hacker change a password without access to the email to confirm it?

I don't think PlayNC makes you confirm a password change. All you need is the PlayNC Game Account username and password to get in. Once you're there you can change the PlayNC account password and your Guild Wars password without one "verify this password change" email sent. Yeah, it sends an "This so-and-so IP Address has changed your password... Please reply if you aren't knowledgeable of this change..." email, but that doesn't hinder hackers any. If you aren't knowledgeable in the first place, you probably aren't bothering to check your email address frequently for possible changes. You'll most likely find out about it too late.

It's what sucks about PlayNC. I want a damn verification email for my password changes, not some automatic 'change this to this and done' crap. If I want to change my Guild Wars account password, send me a link to my email to have it verified BEFORE changing it. At least that way a potential hacker would have to crack two passwords (PlayNC game account password and your email address password) instead of just the one.

EDIT: Just changed my GW password. Not only does PlayNC not send a verification email before changing your GW password, they don't even ask you for the OLD password first! What a load of crap. Seriously - get someone's PlayNC game account username and password and you have them by the balls. BY THE BALLS. Hey PlayNC, thanks for asking me to set up separate accounts for Game and Support though... rolleyes.

HuntMaster Avatar · May 13, 2008, 04:52 AM // 04:52

hmm. that makes me believe anet is somehow involved in this, i mean even most forums offer this security feature.

I am somewhat safe, even if someone hacked my password they wouldnt make any real money off my account aside from my mini's. And even then I dont have any of the very rare ones, I think my most expensive mini is the celestial pig. I have a bunch of greens and golds, but they are worth about 5k or less each. My material stash is nearly empty from selling to merchant for quick cash, Most of my "keeper" items that I use are customized and I'm about to customize the rest for my heroes. I dont have any sup vigors.

i keep my account completely worthless, yet useable. I'm thinking of changing my password again. Just a pain in the ass to keep changing it and keeping my password list up to date and then remembering where I put that list...

Thanks for the info!

edit: Changed my password, now its even longer. Hopefully that will help. If i ever get a disconnect, with a reconnect I wont use it, i will just log out, then log back in.

I feel really bad for the people who have been hacked. I'd like to offer my help to them, If you have been hacked (honestly) and would like some help on farm runs or whatever, let me know. Not sure how I can help, but I am willing. for free of course.

Angelica · May 13, 2008, 05:10 AM // 05:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mac Sidewinder

ahh never knew that. That kind of sucks for me since I no longer have my old email account that I originally had when I first created my account. Anyone know if you can change the email information?

Well I was told, by the supports people,that if you changed your email it was impossible to change your PW because the email for the change would be sent to the old email address. So no you cannot change your PW.

UnKn0wN415 · May 13, 2008, 05:18 AM // 05:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetdoc

He actually had decent luck...

Other than the standard 25 firewaters/brulees and 5 normal tomes, he also got around 20 golds.

Not a bad ratio.

thats 50 items out of 47 keys HACKER...

lol jk...

HuntMaster Avatar · May 13, 2008, 05:22 AM // 05:22

If you log into the character select screen, then go down to edit account,then change password. you can change the password. Just thought I'd toss that out there.

I suggest making a password using the maximum digits available, long passwords are harder to crack than short ones. Unless ofcourse someone uses a program, in which case we are not safe, we need a comfirmation email.

Grim Aragorn · May 13, 2008, 05:33 AM // 05:33

well for some of us it will NOT let u change your password ive been trying for almost a year with no luck, just anet and their crappy support FTW.

dwc89 · May 13, 2008, 05:54 AM // 05:54

Not a fun thing to read. Glad you didn't lose much/anything.

I will say this , for myself anyway, doesn't encourage a sale of GW2.

Anet/NCSoft need to be proactive with the community in my opinion. And they can get serious about security, how many used the online store.

Just had a thought - has this been a more regular occurence since we have had access to all countries/regions districts?

Lady Lozza · May 13, 2008, 06:15 AM // 06:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grim Aragorn

well for some of us it will NOT let u change your password ive been trying for almost a year with no luck, just anet and their crappy support FTW.

A thought for what it is worth. A hacker won't be able to change it either. So you are never going to be denied access to your account. If you get hacked though you will have to go through support. I'd say it'd be 3 days till you got a new password and secured your account again :S

These incidents of hacking are making me nervous. I linked to the store well before it became common knowledge that linked accounts no longer had the option of changing the password in the client.

cataphract · May 13, 2008, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by TideSwayer

EDIT: Just changed my GW password. Not only does PlayNC not send a verification email before changing your GW password, they don't even ask you for the OLD password first! What a load of crap. Seriously - get someone's PlayNC game account username and password and you have them by the balls. BY THE BALLS. Hey PlayNC, thanks for asking me to set up separate accounts for Game and Support though... rolleyes.

I agree with everything you said. PlayNC's security could - and should - be a lot tighter. The only security feature it provides is the "verify email address" option which sends an email containin a verification code. But if someone hacks into your PlayNC account, he will be able to change that email address.

Also, PlayNC password policy sucks badly. It forces you to start your password with a letter. That's just horribly wrong and lowers the number of possible password combinations. An account with wich enables you to administer all your games MUST have a way tighter security. SSL is a MUST. There's lots of money involved here, not to mention sentimental value of our game accounts.

They need to fix this. ASAP.

Turtle222 · May 13, 2008, 07:23 AM // 07:23

You're setting a good example jet. I think any person that is afraid that their account is getting hacked should be redirected to this thread so they know that they should reset their password immediately.

good job

wu is me · May 13, 2008, 07:38 AM // 07:38

I find it quite odd that you get kicked off oO.

Me and a trusted friend shared our passwords (i believe he forgot mine, cos I'm password paranoid), and i happend to have logged in once or twice, to his account (in order use his chars to run my lowwer lvl characters) whilst he was actually appearing offline.

On each of those occasions, where i logged in, as soon as i click one of his characters, and it loads up in whichever town he's in, i get booted.

So... even if a hacker did get your password i find it very strange that he was able to boot you off your session, and more so that he made a conscious decision to kick you off your session(unless... you were appearing offline?)

I know for a fact that if i were a hacker, and i could kick you off a session, i would wait until i knew u were offline, before i did anything shifty.

Shanaeri Rynale · May 13, 2008, 07:44 AM // 07:44

The kick is automatic. As soon as a second person logs into the account, the first one is kicked.

Something is going on here, are all the breached accounts linked with plaync?

cataphract · May 13, 2008, 07:46 AM // 07:46

From my experience, when you log on someone's account while he's logged in, that someone gets error 7 and is disconnected.

Mystica · May 13, 2008, 07:51 AM // 07:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by cataphract

PlayNC's security could - and should - be a lot tighter.

The users security should be tighter and that's about it. There is no hacking involved at all.

People who claim that they got hacked were simply uncautious.

Let's see the chances of either.

1. You downloaded a keylogger/trojan, gave your info away, used a weak password for a known email.

- You do not even need to download trojans activly. There are browser exploits to do that for you. Furthermore they can be hidden in pictures, email attachments and other media.
- Your info is available on several forums and a lot of people tend to give their email addresses away for whatever reason and use their [email protected] as game account. That combined with a weak password is another good way to get your account. There is still the option to exploit forums to get a database full or email addresses. While it is unlikely to crack a salted vBulletin password hash there are a) other forums that have your data with less security and b) email + weak pass is enough in some cases.

now compare this to 2.

2. The account really got hacked, meaning someone got access to the Anet database containing all account information.

- That would require access to the server. Chances are the Anet servers are protected about 10000000000X better then any home PC out there. It is still possible to get on it though.
- Next problem is finding the database. IF a real hacker managed to get access he has to find the database. Now you can be pretty sure that the database is hosted on a seperate network requiring him to find this server and gain access.
- Accessing the database. For the very unlikely case that someone really managed to access 2 super protected server networks fast enough to bypass all logs and security measures he still needs access to the database. You can be sure that Anet or any other online game does not use MySQL or text files to store your data so there is a big chance our hacker faces a system he doesn't know or where he doesn't know any exploits for. Now he has to gain access fast enough not to get caught.
- Cracking the passwords. Even the GW ingame packets are encrypted with a key nobody managed to find yet. Now the passwords won't be plain-text so even if our hacker gets the hashes he still needs to crack them or have enough access to the database to find his own hash and replace all others with it to have the password.
- Getting out without traces. Now if he succeeded to perform the whole chain he still needs to find the logs that had his traces stored to delete them. A lot of companies store log files on a sepearate server...you know what that means + most professional networks are mirrored so he needs access to the mirror containing the logs too.

Is all of that possible? Yes. Very unlikely but possible since nothing is impossible to hack. Would anyone go through all that for some ZKeys and Ecto? Never. It's just not worth it since anybody that could perform all this should have a million better ideas to gain profit and even if someone had access. Why should he take your items when he has the power to create stacks over stacks of items with full access?

Now compare the chances of the scenarios yourself.

1. the lost account being your fault

2. someone really went through all the above to sell 47 ZKeys, some Ecto, some gold.

I do understand though that nobody would confess that he downloaded something from a unknown source or visited a suspicious website. After all it would destroy your self-given right to QQ.

Something nobody considers is Social Engineering. Read it up. People are smart enough to ask the right questions to get the answers they need without you knowing it.