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Old 11/08/07, 8:40 AM   #1
♦ Praetorian
Mike Tyson
 
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Orc Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
Common Sense / Account Security

I assume every reader of these boards knows better than this, but if you get a PM from someone you don't know asking you to visit a link under some pretense, don't click on the link. Do report the person sending said PMs to me or another mod, however.

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Old 11/08/07, 8:46 AM   #2
♦ Praetorian
Mike Tyson
 
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Orc Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
In particular, today, the following PM was sent by a spambot:
Sorry to msg you out of the blue. Here's the thing.

I wrote a book together with a friend. My boyfriend keeps saying it's no good. I think he's just jealous tho. He's a big time poster here, so I told him I'm going to pick a random person here, and ask them, and we ended up betting on it.

So go to <URL REMOVED> and call it either way. Good or no good.

Thanks.
Obviously do not click on this link. The user in question ("EliteGrrl") has been banned and IP banned already, so we know about this. But please do inform us if any other such PMs appear.

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Old 11/08/07, 8:48 AM   #3
Sanderu
Von Kaiser
 
Draenei Shaman
 
Executus (EU)
Thanks for the warning, I just received this PM but saw the banned tag under the user name so I went to check the forums first

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Old 11/08/07, 8:52 AM   #4
♦ Praetorian
Mike Tyson
 
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Orc Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
Pretty poor job of social engineering, IMO.

A proper attempt would've said something like "Hey sorry to message you out of the blue, but I have a theorycraft spreadsheet I wanted to post but I don't want to embarrass myself as I'm new here, and I was wondering if you could take a look at it ( <URL> ) for a second to make sure it's mostly accurate."

I'm not going to lie, I haven't had my coffee yet this morning and I might've actually clicked that.

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Old 11/08/07, 8:54 AM   #5
vorda
Bald Bull
 
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Blood Elf Paladin
 
Jaedenar (EU)
I'm not going to lie, I haven't had my coffee yet this morning and I might've actually clicked that.
So would I probably. Which brings me to this interesting question:
How many of these keyloggers can be stopped by a good functioning updated Antivirus? I obviously havent ever clicked one of those links, so I wouldnt know what my AV (Avira Antivir) would do, but maybe someone here has experience with it?

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Old 11/08/07, 8:59 AM   #6
♦ Praetorian
Mike Tyson
 
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Orc Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
I have not clicked the link myself to confirm, because I'm not that brave/stupid, but the best thing you can do is to browse with Firefox + the addon NoScript, which prevents the automatic execution of any imbedded scripting unless you authorize the specific site. I'm not going to go so far as to say this makes you 100% immune to keyloggers (certainly not if you are manually downloading and running executables) but it's a major step. And of course keep your AV definitions updated and be especially cautious if you realize you've clicked on a link that may be malicious.

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Old 11/08/07, 9:14 AM   #7
Evy
Von Kaiser
 
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Night Elf Rogue
 
Malfurion
NoScript will indeed usually keep keyloggers from working on Firefox. It saved my ass once on a WoW forums link I clicked on absentmindedly. However, I wouldn't really want to risk it on a known malicious link. It's sort of like messing with Biohazard waste just because you have gloves. Even though NoScript gets updated all the time, I wouldn't put 100% faith in it.

I found the background story behind that PM to be pretty amusing. Some chick has a disagreement with her boyfriend and you, the EJ reader, must restore her confidence in herself! It's almost as believable as the "most sex girl ever" posts that seem to pop up on the general forums every now and then.

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Old 11/08/07, 9:24 AM   #8
Opioid
Don Flamenco
 
Blood Elf Warlock
 
Kil'Jaeden
Originally Posted by Evy View Post
I found the background story behind that PM to be pretty amusing. Some chick has a disagreement with her boyfriend and you, the EJ reader, must restore her confidence in herself! It's almost as believable as the "most sex girl ever" posts that seem to pop up on the general forums every now and then.
Let it be known that henceforth WoW players are now the supreme arbiters of literature and that we can no longer give our opinions on such matters without severe deliberation, because great responsibility comes with this great power.

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Old 11/08/07, 9:32 AM   #9
zirky
Piston Honda
 
Orc Death Knight
 
Kargath
Man, I actually felt special that I had been chosen to resolve a literary conflict between to lovers.

Then someone in the office mentioned they brought in cake today, narrowly saving me from putting my account at risk.

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Old 11/08/07, 9:34 AM   #10
Sapa
Piston Honda
 
Troll Hunter
 
Mazrigos (EU)
Link is safe by the way for those clicking it and just now seeing that it could be trojan / keyloger / hijacker. (got it for 2x time myself and was reported by numerous clients).
First time it came from Source Forge pms.

Apparently "someone" is spamming same MSG over half of internet. Link indeed links on book.

Quote: "Don't read IT if you want to have some hair left while you are banning this".


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Old 11/08/07, 12:05 PM   #11
Enova
Great Tiger
 
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Night Elf Hunter
 
Moonglade (EU)
This is what we get for having links to the EJ forums on the Official WOW forums

Now seriously, if anyone does fall for this kind of trick, well, he's likely not going to have security software in the first place...

Originally Posted by XI- View Post
In summary, TBC raiding is easy. 9/10 encounters can be summarized with 1 phrase. Stay out of the fucking fire. If this is too difficult BWL was still there last I checked, so go have at it for some practice.
Originally Posted by Kaubel View Post
You people are idiots
Guilty as charged ^

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Old 11/08/07, 12:35 PM   #12
Evy
Von Kaiser
 
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Night Elf Rogue
 
Malfurion
Originally Posted by Opioid View Post
Let it be known that henceforth WoW players are now the supreme arbiters of literature and that we can no longer give our opinions on such matters without severe deliberation, because great responsibility comes with this great power.
Analyzing what you read/see/hear/etc is just a product of being a rational person, not the product of reading a critical forum, playing a specific game, or otherwise being a smug bastard.

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Old 11/08/07, 12:42 PM   #13
Vectivus
foreign contaminant
 
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Tauren Death Knight
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by Evy View Post
Analyzing what you read/see/hear/etc is just a product of being a rational person, not the product of reading a critical forum, playing a specific game, or otherwise being a smug bastard.
Ah, but we're not just smug bastards - we're Elitist Jerks.

I have this vision in my head of you holding a butterfly in your hand named, 'Enjoyment of Life', then crushing the life out of that butterfly. You know, when you get the dust-stuff off their wings all over your hand? Yeah, that would be the souls of the thousands of innocent and harmless jokes you just murdered.

Originally Posted by Theras View Post
Frankly I don't know how you non-Nordic people can breed in good conscience.

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Old 11/08/07, 1:48 PM   #14
Balkoth
Piston Honda
 
Human Priest
 
Greymane
The only "issue" I had with this is that the contents of any PM are forwarded to my email address as well, so I almost clicked on it early this morning before realizing it might be malicious content. When I checked the EJ site, I could clearly tell, but...

Bottom line, check the EJ site for bannings if you get a weird PM through email.

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Old 11/08/07, 2:33 PM   #15
Krathis
Von Kaiser
 
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Undead Warlock
 
Cenarion Circle
Originally Posted by Balkoth View Post
The only "issue" I had with this is that the contents of any PM are forwarded to my email address as well, so I almost clicked on it early this morning before realizing it might be malicious content. When I checked the EJ site, I could clearly tell, but...

Bottom line, check the EJ site for bannings if you get a weird PM through email.
Yeah, I actually checked my email first and got my self in trouble over it. I used to have dreams of being an author so figured what the hell, I can at least take a glance at it.

Anyway, to whoever said that that the site's not malicious, it is. I just spent the last hour cleaning every file created today off my pc and changing all my passwords after one of those you have blah blah spyware screens popped up (you know the ones that are almost always directing you to download more spyware).

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