I was just wondering if anyone else has been a victim of the recent account hacks?

I had both of my accounts hacked last week only to log on and find all my characters stripped of items and gold. The culprit was a keylogger that somehow found its way into my system.

I am currently starting the process of getting items back. My account was locked out, now reactivated and now apparently I have to petition for items back (which seems like it could take forever).

What was your experience with this issue?

Cheers,

Janvier

Learn to protect yourself and your computer better?
Learn to use Firewall, antivirus and antispyware, and always keep it updated.
Learn to not use Internet explorer, but use Opera instead or if u must the n00b firefox :P
And for the love of god use commen sence when u are browsing the internet.

Basicly never had a virus or the like in the last 5 years.


As of relation to wow, an officer in my guild got keylogged and lost 52 epics. He used his secret question/password and got his account back. Then he made a ticket and got a respond that his ticket was referred to a special hack department of GM's. A few days later during a naxxramas raid a GM contacted him and asked if he had a minute. He said yes cause we had just wiped and the GM teleported him to the bank in IF where he gave him 52 epics he then placed in his bank, whereas the GM teleported him back to naxxramas to the exact spot he had left a few min earlier.
Dunno if he got his gold back though... He lost like 1600g but all his gear was returned (think gold was aswell).

Jedic, I really don't see any reason to act so pompus here......these aren' t the WoW forums. Not everyone is as avid as some of us when it comes to internet security.

There were 2 people in my guild as well that got keylogged; one due to IE (pls get firefox at least), and the other due to a bad link. Firewalling is not necessary if you are careful when browsing. Your router's and windows' "firewall" whould supply enough protection, as long as you dont browse carelessly.

Basically, if you don't recognize the url, don't go to it. That is the best advice anyone can give you.

When it comes to getting your stuff back.....don't hold your breath. One of my guildies got his back after 7 straight days of petitions and escalations to "account restoration managers". Now the other guildie is another story. He has been waiting almost 2 weeks with no real response yet. Needless to say he is pissed. What I suggest is to be as stern with your GMs as possible without being rude. Request to have your issue escalated to a manager as soon as possible. Otherwise you just have to sit there and wait.

GL to you man.

Ive not personally been caught out here but our GM (who also had our Gbanks) got hacked and all his banks and stuff D'ed/stolen. Recently hes been reinstated (ban whilst investigated) and we know they caught the person who did it as the items stolen or atleast some of them were mailed back from his account. Well known AH farmers account with fantastic random letters name...who'd of though it. Since this has happened all banks have now been split and the gm has been given internet lessons to stop him being quite so kippered in future. We still lost a lot of stuff/money we wont get back but atleast our Gm is back and playing :)

Best adivice apart from opera or firefox is to get a non software based firewall and abuse add/malware and virus scanners.

Lots of the recent hacks were from an activex keylogger thats getting the password from the wow forums rather than logging into the game.

I don't visit dubious sites, I keep my software updated, and I run everything behind a firewall. In 8 years of building my own PCs I've never had a virus, nor have I been hacked. Not once.

Cheers,

Janvier

I use a mac.

Well this all depends (judging from the overwhelming amount of evidence) on if you consider the Official WoW forums as "Dubious" ;)

One of my guildies got hacked last week while many of us were online. Tried to contact a GM to make him stop but alas it was futile. Funny thing was that my guildie main's hearth was in Kargath so the hacker only could DE and sell the gear he had on him. Even funnier is that my guildie's main is a mage. So obviously said person had no idea how to teleport.

You didn't get keylogged by something on the WoW forums. You might well have clicked on a link there that got you keylogged, but the source was elsewhere.

Don't visit dubious sites, keep your software updated, run a firewall. It's good advice.

Even so, yes. I do consider those forums dubious. They rot your brain if nothing else.

Cheers,

Janvier

The former part of your post would be obvious to anyone who actually used the internet for more than a year :P

I mean I know Blizzard don't exactly have the best of online services when it comes to their web department, but I doubt they would let anyone freely put an activex exploit on their forums :)

Kaubel, that was exactly my point, if I go to the Warlock forums I expect to see at least 2 pages full of "SL IZ GAY" threads :P

Janvier, the only error you made was not using Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox, as the only reason the people were able to get the Keylogger on your PC in the first place was a heavly abused ActiveX exploit which was on IE6, which has now been fixed by the latest security patch.

I use a mac as well, but don't gloat too much on that. Macs are only "safe" compared to PCs because the PC market is so much larger. If everyone was using OSX instead of windows, it would be just as bad on a Mac. People write viruses to impact the largest number of computers possible.

Please don't sign your posts.

Sit down with a sheet of paper and think. Piece together your sets in your head and write down all the pieces for them. Fire resist? Nature Resist? Shadow Resist? Different playstyles (for me healing and dps). If you're having trouble remembering a name- use thottbot or alakhahoweveryouspellit. I can easily do this for my 3 60's, but the lowbie alts would be more difficult (was that of the bear... or of stamina?). Then go through your consumable supply. Go through the funstuff in your bank. (I have a holiday hat, a couple of bobbing apples, one of those halloween wands I think etc) Quest items, keys, crafting materials, BoE blues you're holding for sale, etc etc etc.

Start with the easy stuff and spend some time on the list. It would suck to remember something important but rarely used later on.

Seeing as you can't take Kaubel's hint I'll help you. Stop signing your posts, we can all see who's posting by averting our eyes slightly to the left.

Back on topic all the advice given thus far is sound. There is also a good thread stickied on the world of warcraft EU General forum that will give further information and is a genuine 'needle in a haystack' being a relatively good thread amongst all the rubbish.

If you play as much as you claim, knowing what gear you have should be second nature to you. If you forget some things you had stored in the bank, they probably don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. There are plenty of inventory addons available that display everything that's in your bags as well as your bank, so that's something to keep in mind for the future.

As far as having decent security, security software suites are not a silver bullet. Anti-virus, anti-spyware and a firewall are excellent front line technical solutions. Avoid putting yourself in a position where you are at risk to begin with. If you don't know what's risky and what's not, then that's a great place to start educating yourself.

Kaubel must be having a great day. You've gotten two free passes so far.

Same reason Firefox is 'more secure' than IE. Mostly. Opera FTW btw.

When I lost my account, it only took me 4-5 days to get my items back. It feels like an eternity, but...the sick thing about losing your account is you make a lot of money off of it. I had all my gold back, and then I got pretty much everything that dropped in ZG.

Once I got my gear back I vendored it all and made some money O.o.

Anyway, yeah, it doesn't take that long, the only terrible thing is tradeskills can't be restored.

Interesting. Here in EU you won't get gold back and your gear won't have any enchants.

accidentily entered worldofwar .net instead of worldofraids and got hacked, and well, that was 9 days ago, found out my secret answer is something in the line "aiofoasfasjfnxuia" and blizzard ain't very fast to respond on mails.
Got a verification that they had recieved my mail 3 days after I sent it, no response what so ever after that.

whoah i read that rpgoutfitter article, is it really true that ui.worldofwar.net has a trojan on its bloody home page??? Freakin' A, thats just crazy.

Ok checked a little more if you have Security Update KB925486 on XP your safe (I used add/remove programs, clicked on Show Updates, it was the last one under Security Updates, takes a while to find it). Still, i'm going to avoid that add-ons site for a few weeks now.

I still use IE, I know its what losers use but I just like the UI and haven't had any real security problems over the years (keep up to date with patches, avoid weird sites, never click on strange links, never install new activeX controls). Have firefox as well but I've read that can be just as vunerable. bleh, I should just stop browsing the net :(

This is tangential to the topic but does anyone know if Vista is supposed to once and for all stop this kinda crap? I'm so tired of worryying about what to click on and sites to visit. Yeah I could run Linux or Opera or something else few people so hackers don't bother with me, but I'm more worried about my friends and family who tend to be more... click happy. I can't even share my wow account with them anymore due to not knowing who is going to be infected.

o_0

worldofwar has issues with keyloggers? Im slightly worried now, as i go on there to mock the idiots from time to time (yes i know i shouldnt, but have you seen quite how retarded the people on their forums are?) but i use firefox and have a firewall. ok, am gonna have to scan my pc when i get home i think.

Cheers,

Janiver.