Account hacked - what would you do? - Guild Wars Forums

Johno77 · May 22, 2011, 01:46 AM // 01:46

Ok, so 6 years into GW my account gets hacked - god knows how, truly baffled, but its happened so, tough luck. No money, weapons, armour, no anything, everything i've worked for has gone. Anyway, this isnt a sob story, actually, I was thinking its kinda given me a new challenge and a whole new take on the game. I've still got my chars and the titles I have at least, so I thought it might be a challenge to rebuild it all.

So I was thinking, what would you guys do if it happened? Part of me says I've wasted enough time getting this far so maybe I should call it a day?

Is it time to move on?

Bladed Tribble · May 22, 2011, 03:03 AM // 03:03

Since you still have all your titles/achievements, it all comes down to whether or not you want to work again towards all you used to have (which is pretty much just money). It would really depend on how "far" you got, but if you're bored and up for the challenge, go for it!

Personally, if I was hacked now, I would still rebuild... Then again, I only have 1 character with an obby armor set and not even all heroes fully runed up :P

Hobbs · May 22, 2011, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Since my activity is pretty low at the moment and I have 50/50 and the shit I need, if I lost everything i'd probably just uninstall and wait for GW2. But I guess it's up to you.

Banana_Phone · May 22, 2011, 03:38 AM // 03:38

Your virtual items and currency should be the least of your concerns.

How did the breach occur?
Were your passwords too weak?
Is your PC vulnerable to unauthorized access?
Did you entrust your login information with someone who has a weakly secured computer or is someone you can't fully trust?

etc.

These are the questions you need to ask yourself and you need to ensure that you are changing up your computing habits for the better by learning from this experience.

I use Lastpass and Keepass, a reliable antivirus (either nod32 or Kaspersky) along with a NAT firewall. I don't ever use a generic password (no reason to with Lastpass) and I never share sensitive information with anyone.

EDIT: The weak link might just be a Ncsoft master account. Their password requirements are just horrendous (only alphanumeric and you can't start with a number, who does this?), and someone with access can change your GW password without knowing the old password.

Chrisworld · May 22, 2011, 03:55 AM // 03:55

I don't use anti virus, haven't ever used it. 5 years into GW without being hacked, let alone other mmos and steam. Its called common sense. I dont share or entrust my passwords with ANYONE and I dont use common passwords or ones with words in them.

Im banking on an old friend or a weak/predictible password maybe even stolen from a forum database some time back.

Blightfire · May 22, 2011, 06:38 AM // 06:38

Mine got hacked and I earned my gold back starting off with farming Jade Quarry for zkeys to sell.

Aeronwen · May 22, 2011, 09:17 AM // 09:17

Johno,

Its a shame this happened. Despite what a lot of people say I am convinced some hackings are due to the rotten security at NCsoft.

What you do now depends on whether you still enjoy the game. I do so I would still play - one of the great things about GW is that you don't need expensive armours or weaps to play effectively. Runes are jolly useful though ^^

Good Luck

Dragons Avatar · May 22, 2011, 10:18 AM // 10:18

even though i didnt get hacked (sucks to have that happen btw, srry to hear).. i spent all the money i had on random stuff and guildies and started playing a secondary account.. which up till then was just a mule, so pretty much started from the bottom.. and it's a lot of fun again actualy lol... im at 6 years of GW aswell and didnt rly think the game would still be this fun if ur actualy working on a new char, instead of rushing one through just to get to that 1 farming spot u wanna try out :P

So.. Yea, i would start over, its fun

Raven Wing · May 22, 2011, 11:03 AM // 11:03

Its always sad to get hacked, but looks like it wasn??t the worst kind of hacker. You just got looted, they could have deleted your chars, used the account for botting and get it banned. Unless you are bored and tired of gw you should certainly come back.
I made a experiment a bit ago, pretending to be stripped of all, restarting with completely naked and unarmed char and empty bags. Lvl20 and all skills available though. It took me 20mins to farm outside ascalon to get starter armor, and then 2 hours of featherfarm earned me enough for max armor from kaineng with all runes (except sup vig) and a suitable cheap green staff bought in spamadan.
So it shouldn??t take long to get back into the game for real

Or you can challenge yourself by starting a new char from scratch and earn every bit for the armor and weps progressing through game the regular way.

Bristlebane · May 22, 2011, 11:37 AM // 11:37

Personally I would just start some simple farming, Rit feather farming to precise. Reason is you can do this entirely naked and without runes, just pit spirits on tengu in Jaya Bluffs. Sell feathers and use the runes you get to re-equip your main characters again.

After getting enough for armor and runes, I would move on to UW with Rit and farm ectos to gain enough money to re-equip rest of my characters.

deluxe · May 22, 2011, 04:10 PM // 16:10

I think i got hacked today, my password doesn't work anymore, and I see on a 2nd account that my main was online 3 hours ago.
I'm done with guildwars and GW2 if it's completely emptied...
6 years down the drain.
I have no idea what my ncsoft account is, so I cant reset my password...

Masmar · May 22, 2011, 04:26 PM // 16:26

Sell my account.
Wait, you have to do that in advance. Good thing I did

Coast · May 22, 2011, 04:54 PM // 16:54

must be somebody from guru who did it

Angela Sitsonit · May 22, 2011, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Sorry to hear that you have been hacked and even more sorry i am to see remarks like "don't share your password" "use common sense" "was your password weak ? " As you may find in other threads here on guru it's not always "the idiots" fault.
Indeed be happy that you still have your toons, others have had all their toons deleted.
If you have 50/50 HOM and done all in game that you want to do, it might be a good idea for a break and enjoy that weird passtime other ppl call life. I'm just getting into it myself and am kind of liking it. I have found out that sleep is kind of nice too when done more than 3 hrs a day.

Xenomortis · May 22, 2011, 05:50 PM // 17:50

I would probably take that as a signal to move on.
Delete my Paragon and Ranger to make room for another two PvP char slots and join a newbie GvG guild and only ever PvE to do a few things with older friends and continue to play Monk in terrible pickup groups for the ZQuests.

Banana_Phone · May 22, 2011, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angela Sitsonit

Sorry to hear that you have been hacked and even more sorry i am to see remarks like "don't share your password" "use common sense" "was your password weak ? " As you may find in other threads here on guru it's not always "the idiots" fault.
Indeed be happy that you still have your toons, others have had all their toons deleted.
If you have 50/50 HOM and done all in game that you want to do, it might be a good idea for a break and enjoy that weird passtime other ppl call life. I'm just getting into it myself and am kind of liking it. I have found out that sleep is kind of nice too when done more than 3 hrs a day.

I am someone who offered advice on the matter. And I'm not quite sure where you are getting this implication that the victim was blamed, that was not at all the case.

Was I even in the least bit accusatory in my post above? I simply asked the OP to consider his computing habits and if, they are found to be lacking, to improve on them. In fact, in the very end, I peg the most likely culprit to be NCsoft's lax security standards.

It certainly isn't OP's fault that an illegal breach occurred on his account, but wouldn't it be foolish NOT to take an introspective look at one's internet and computing habits after such a breach occurs?

Ghost Dog · May 22, 2011, 07:08 PM // 19:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by deluxe

I think i got hacked today, my password doesn't work anymore, and I see on a 2nd account that my main was online 3 hours ago.
I'm done with guildwars and GW2 if it's completely emptied...
6 years down the drain.
I have no idea what my ncsoft account is, so I cant reset my password...

You really should keep track of these things. Why leave now? I doubt they can manage stealing your GW2 inheritance. Pop a support ticket up they will try to help you reclaim everything.

EDIT: @op if I got hacked I would pet a chicken. Harder than it sounds.

deluxe · May 22, 2011, 07:20 PM // 19:20

The time has arrived for NCSoft to tighten their security, too many accounts have been hacked.
My characters were decked out with every single armor, I had loads of high-end gear, 20+ r8 shields, multiple stacks of ecto's, some stacks of zkeys, 3 6th year gifts I just received.

At least I made 50/50 before getting hacked, sigh....
http://hom.guildwars2.com/en/#page=m...AAAhUYIAAAAAAA

Even PvP will be annoying without my r8 shields...

KZaske · May 22, 2011, 07:32 PM // 19:32

I had a friend that got hacked last week. He lost everything, years worth of work lost. According to Anet/NCSoft there were three UK accounts involved, all three have been banned. Where does that leave him, starting over. He has a long way until he reaches 50/50.

shadowfell · May 22, 2011, 08:29 PM // 20:29

My account was hacked sometime last night or this morning. I lost ecto, a dedicated kuunavang, 6 frog scepters, a handful of celestial compasses along with random weapons of no consequence, like a pyroclastic axe, for example. Out of all of the pre-nerf staves on this account, they only took one of them, which was kind of special to me.

It's not the first time it's happened. I had quit the game back in 2006 to go to WoW and when I randomly tried to log in, found my account had been locked. I got it unlocked and some ecto and my kuunavang was missing then, too. I thought i was pretty secure until this morning.

My account was locked out via password so I rushed to kick whoever was doing whatever, out by locking them out of the account. I must have interrupted them but they'd already done a lot of damage.

It just seems sad that ncsoft has zero support for this and it's giving me reason to not want to buy GW 2.

The worst of it is that I had accumulated all of the mats to craft each of the destroyer weapons, had one tormented dom staff and exactly three oppressor weapons not yet dedicated. I would have finished my valor monument, at least.

People go through the standard, "Oh, you must have bought gold or shared your account info", but there are people never shared ANYTHING, being hacked. I think it's highly suspicious.

I know Blizzard has a huge problem with inactive accounts being damaged by hackers, so.. how do they know if your account is active or not? It's a curious question without an exact answer and does NCsoft have the same issue?

May 22, 2011, 01:46 AM // 01:46	#1
Johno77 Krytan Explorer Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: England Guild: Apocalyptica UK Profession: N/Me	Account hacked - what would you do? Ok, so 6 years into GW my account gets hacked - god knows how, truly baffled, but its happened so, tough luck. No money, weapons, armour, no anything, everything i've worked for has gone. Anyway, this isnt a sob story, actually, I was thinking its kinda given me a new challenge and a whole new take on the game. I've still got my chars and the titles I have at least, so I thought it might be a challenge to rebuild it all. So I was thinking, what would you guys do if it happened? Part of me says I've wasted enough time getting this far so maybe I should call it a day? Is it time to move on?

May 22, 2011, 03:38 AM // 03:38	#4
Banana_Phone Ascalonian Squire Join Date: May 2011	Your virtual items and currency should be the least of your concerns. How did the breach occur? Were your passwords too weak? Is your PC vulnerable to unauthorized access? Did you entrust your login information with someone who has a weakly secured computer or is someone you can't fully trust? etc. These are the questions you need to ask yourself and you need to ensure that you are changing up your computing habits for the better by learning from this experience. I use Lastpass and Keepass, a reliable antivirus (either nod32 or Kaspersky) along with a NAT firewall. I don't ever use a generic password (no reason to with Lastpass) and I never share sensitive information with anyone. EDIT: The weak link might just be a Ncsoft master account. Their password requirements are just horrendous (only alphanumeric and you can't start with a number, who does this?), and someone with access can change your GW password without knowing the old password. Last edited by Banana_Phone; May 22, 2011 at 03:41 AM // 03:41..

May 22, 2011, 11:03 AM // 11:03	#9
Raven Wing Jungle Guide Join Date: Nov 2005 Guild: The Imperial Guards of Istan [TIGI] Profession: N/	Its always sad to get hacked, but looks like it wasn??t the worst kind of hacker. You just got looted, they could have deleted your chars, used the account for botting and get it banned. Unless you are bored and tired of gw you should certainly come back. I made a experiment a bit ago, pretending to be stripped of all, restarting with completely naked and unarmed char and empty bags. Lvl20 and all skills available though. It took me 20mins to farm outside ascalon to get starter armor, and then 2 hours of featherfarm earned me enough for max armor from kaineng with all runes (except sup vig) and a suitable cheap green staff bought in spamadan. So it shouldn??t take long to get back into the game for real Or you can challenge yourself by starting a new char from scratch and earn every bit for the armor and weps progressing through game the regular way. Last edited by Raven Wing; May 22, 2011 at 11:06 AM // 11:06..

May 22, 2011, 03:03 AM // 03:03	#2
Bladed Tribble Academy Page Join Date: Jul 2009 Guild: Lunatics Running the Asylum [CRZY] Profession: E/	Since you still have all your titles/achievements, it all comes down to whether or not you want to work again towards all you used to have (which is pretty much just money). It would really depend on how "far" you got, but if you're bored and up for the challenge, go for it! Personally, if I was hacked now, I would still rebuild... Then again, I only have 1 character with an obby armor set and not even all heroes fully runed up :P

May 22, 2011, 03:36 AM // 03:36	#3
Hobbs Desert Nomad Join Date: May 2006 Guild: Organised Spam [OS] Profession: W/	Since my activity is pretty low at the moment and I have 50/50 and the shit I need, if I lost everything i'd probably just uninstall and wait for GW2. But I guess it's up to you.

May 22, 2011, 03:55 AM // 03:55	#5
Chrisworld Krytan Explorer Join Date: Aug 2010 Guild: Gameamp Guides [AMP] Profession: W/	I don't use anti virus, haven't ever used it. 5 years into GW without being hacked, let alone other mmos and steam. Its called common sense. I dont share or entrust my passwords with ANYONE and I dont use common passwords or ones with words in them. Im banking on an old friend or a weak/predictible password maybe even stolen from a forum database some time back.

May 22, 2011, 06:38 AM // 06:38	#6
Blightfire Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Sep 2006	Mine got hacked and I earned my gold back starting off with farming Jade Quarry for zkeys to sell.

May 22, 2011, 09:17 AM // 09:17	#7
Aeronwen not so much fell as..... Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: UK Guild: bone Profession: R/	Johno, Its a shame this happened. Despite what a lot of people say I am convinced some hackings are due to the rotten security at NCsoft. What you do now depends on whether you still enjoy the game. I do so I would still play - one of the great things about GW is that you don't need expensive armours or weaps to play effectively. Runes are jolly useful though ^^ Good Luck

May 22, 2011, 10:18 AM // 10:18	#8
Dragons Avatar Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Dec 2007 Guild: None Profession: A/E	even though i didnt get hacked (sucks to have that happen btw, srry to hear).. i spent all the money i had on random stuff and guildies and started playing a secondary account.. which up till then was just a mule, so pretty much started from the bottom.. and it's a lot of fun again actualy lol... im at 6 years of GW aswell and didnt rly think the game would still be this fun if ur actualy working on a new char, instead of rushing one through just to get to that 1 farming spot u wanna try out :P So.. Yea, i would start over, its fun

May 22, 2011, 11:37 AM // 11:37	#10
Bristlebane Desert Nomad Join Date: Jan 2008 Profession: Mo/	Personally I would just start some simple farming, Rit feather farming to precise. Reason is you can do this entirely naked and without runes, just pit spirits on tengu in Jaya Bluffs. Sell feathers and use the runes you get to re-equip your main characters again. After getting enough for armor and runes, I would move on to UW with Rit and farm ectos to gain enough money to re-equip rest of my characters.

May 22, 2011, 04:10 PM // 16:10	#11
deluxe Desert Nomad Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Monkeyball Z Guild: S.K.A.T. [Ban] Profession: Mo/	I think i got hacked today, my password doesn't work anymore, and I see on a 2nd account that my main was online 3 hours ago. I'm done with guildwars and GW2 if it's completely emptied... 6 years down the drain. I have no idea what my ncsoft account is, so I cant reset my password...

May 22, 2011, 04:26 PM // 16:26	#12
Masmar Krytan Explorer Join Date: May 2008 Location: Aberdeen, Scotland Guild: We Gat Dis [HRUU] Profession: E/	Sell my account. Wait, you have to do that in advance. Good thing I did

May 22, 2011, 04:54 PM // 16:54	#13
Coast Furnace Stoker Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Belgium Guild: Whats Going On [sup] Profession: Mo/	must be somebody from guru who did it

May 22, 2011, 05:46 PM // 17:46	#14
Angela Sitsonit Academy Page Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: the Netherlands Guild: [AARP] Profession: W/	Sorry to hear that you have been hacked and even more sorry i am to see remarks like "don't share your password" "use common sense" "was your password weak ? " As you may find in other threads here on guru it's not always "the idiots" fault. Indeed be happy that you still have your toons, others have had all their toons deleted. If you have 50/50 HOM and done all in game that you want to do, it might be a good idea for a break and enjoy that weird passtime other ppl call life. I'm just getting into it myself and am kind of liking it. I have found out that sleep is kind of nice too when done more than 3 hrs a day.

May 22, 2011, 05:50 PM // 17:50	#15
Xenomortis Tea Powered Join Date: May 2008 Location: UK Profession: N/	I would probably take that as a signal to move on. Delete my Paragon and Ranger to make room for another two PvP char slots and join a newbie GvG guild and only ever PvE to do a few things with older friends and continue to play Monk in terrible pickup groups for the ZQuests.

May 22, 2011, 07:20 PM // 19:20	#18
deluxe Desert Nomad Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Monkeyball Z Guild: S.K.A.T. [Ban] Profession: Mo/	The time has arrived for NCSoft to tighten their security, too many accounts have been hacked. My characters were decked out with every single armor, I had loads of high-end gear, 20+ r8 shields, multiple stacks of ecto's, some stacks of zkeys, 3 6th year gifts I just received. At least I made 50/50 before getting hacked, sigh.... http://hom.guildwars2.com/en/#page=m...AAAhUYIAAAAAAA Even PvP will be annoying without my r8 shields...

May 22, 2011, 07:32 PM // 19:32	#19
KZaske Jungle Guide Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Boise Idaho Guild: Druids Of Old (DOO) Profession: R/Mo	I had a friend that got hacked last week. He lost everything, years worth of work lost. According to Anet/NCSoft there were three UK accounts involved, all three have been banned. Where does that leave him, starting over. He has a long way until he reaches 50/50.

May 22, 2011, 08:29 PM // 20:29	#20
shadowfell hamonite anur ruk Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Echovald Forest Guild: [PhD] Teh Academy Profession: Me/A	My account was hacked sometime last night or this morning. I lost ecto, a dedicated kuunavang, 6 frog scepters, a handful of celestial compasses along with random weapons of no consequence, like a pyroclastic axe, for example. Out of all of the pre-nerf staves on this account, they only took one of them, which was kind of special to me. It's not the first time it's happened. I had quit the game back in 2006 to go to WoW and when I randomly tried to log in, found my account had been locked. I got it unlocked and some ecto and my kuunavang was missing then, too. I thought i was pretty secure until this morning. My account was locked out via password so I rushed to kick whoever was doing whatever, out by locking them out of the account. I must have interrupted them but they'd already done a lot of damage. It just seems sad that ncsoft has zero support for this and it's giving me reason to not want to buy GW 2. The worst of it is that I had accumulated all of the mats to craft each of the destroyer weapons, had one tormented dom staff and exactly three oppressor weapons not yet dedicated. I would have finished my valor monument, at least. People go through the standard, "Oh, you must have bought gold or shared your account info", but there are people never shared ANYTHING, being hacked. I think it's highly suspicious. I know Blizzard has a huge problem with inactive accounts being damaged by hackers, so.. how do they know if your account is active or not? It's a curious question without an exact answer and does NCsoft have the same issue?