How could we be hacked?

My cousin's account was hacked recently. He lost all his gold, his characters were deleted, and he was taken out of the guild. I'm pretty sure he didnt try to download any programs for GW (bots, etc). So how could he have been hacked? Can it happen to anyone even if they didnt do aything stupid to bring it on themselves?

Must've been something he said in-game, a traitorous friend perhaps?

If you're only pretty sure, you should ask him if he downloaded anything.

There are many ways you can get "hacked", besides the obvious "oh noes I downloaded a cheat and it had a keylogger" method.

One simple way is to set up a website that offers "hints, cheats, codes, walkthroughs" (or whatever) but requires you to register with the site first. Stupid people will use their same email address and password as their registration info, and will basically give whoever set up the website your GW account information.

Never, ever, use the same account/pw info for everything you do online.

Accounts can be pretty easily hacked if you use the same email address and password that you use on non-secure forums... like most guild forums.

All of the big fansite forums are safe, but those weaker guild free forums are definitely not.

the most common ways of being hacked

-giving the password to a "friend"
-being keylogged cauz u downloaded infected content (p2p, infected mail..)
-being keylogged cauz u logged your acc on an infected machine, ex: a friend not careful with his comp
-being hacked cauz trying to cheat.. bots and stuff.
NO ONE WILL GIVE U BOTS AND OTHER ILLEGAL STUFF JUST LIKE THAT FOR FREE ON A WEBSITE

A common mistake most people do is using the same guild wars account email/password for their guild forums membership, certain people who have access to guild websites may be less than trust worthy, especially when it comes to your private account. Always be sure to use a different guild website email/password than your guild wars account email/password.

The thought of someone within your own guild hacking you just disturbs me.

(it disturbs me, not surprises me)

What they said.

It's called "social engineering".

Best bet to not get hacked:

1)Make a Seperate Email adress for GW's,Do not use this Email for nothing else.
2)Use everything that you can to making a password, such as the max letters allowed,Numbers,and even, ThEse TYpe oF PASsworD's.(Best bet would be to make a simply random code, and simply write it on a sticky note and put it on your monitor.)
3)Change your password every month or so.

I'd say you be pretty fine abiding by these rules.

skip number 3 as it does not apply.

if you dont give it out why change one random set for another.

4. use CTRL C/ CTRL V to copy your pass instead of typing it each time.

6. if the pc is clean and secure put the pass in the shortcut for auto login (check remember me) to make it work

My cousin wasn't hacked by anyone in the guild, I know that. Unfortunately, he might have done some of the other things that everyone's been warning against (using same password for forums site). I really don't know; he didn't really give me a lot of details.

All my game accounts email/password are exclusive to the game, I've never used them in anything else outside of it.

I'm kind of sick of the "HOW DID I GET HACKED" posts.

It's simple: You weren't careful.

Theres a dozen ways you could have got hacked and if you don't know, no one else will have any idea.

Do you know about the warez scene? With a little digging you could probabaly find something. But can also be a hit and miss venture with lots of run-ins with spyware and such.

I'm not advocating that you go and find illegal things on these types of sites but I'm just saying that it IS not that hard to find AND for free.

And also some programs that arent cheats like that skill program advised in the off-topic thread might also hold keyloggers...

So my advice is dont download anny 3rd party program ^^

This is getting into anal... everyone tells me so, but I keep one of those black and white marble notebooks by my computer. I have a stack of four right now and a fifth one I'm using currently. Whenever I do anything semi-major online, or even do anything to change my settings on my comp, I just write it down in the book. Date, time, action. It won't prevent you from having something happen, but it's a good diagnostic for when something does happen, and it takes such little time to do.

There's no real way of telling what your cousin did, or didn't do to get hacked. Just by simply knowing somebody really well, doesn't mean that you know that they did or did not do something. So, are we suppose to take guesses as to how he got hacked and see which one fits the best?

Plus, please do use firewall...nobody mentioned it and it goes without saying. Block all UDP/TCP ports except 80 (HTTP),6112(GW port I thinks) and other common ports. Not sure what port the SMTP protocol (e-mail) uses but it's easy to find that info. Disallow incoming/outgoing PING, ICMP. Disable pretty much everything you dont use. Or just use some built-in high security settings.

There are automated port sniffers out there searching for open ports to bust through. I guess even that could keylog your actions if it gains priviledged resources on your computer...

And of course, never ever download shit you never heard of. Its the quickest road to pedrition (rock)!

Yknow, I've never downloaded anything, I have a unique password to GW and have one of them nifty firewalls. Then one day I got booted off with the message that someone had logged in under my account. I immediately logged back in and changed my password, never happened again. So unless that was some weird bug, it looks like it's possible without any kind of screw up on your part.