Guild Wars 2

I had my first encounter with a suspension due to unauthorized log-in attempts today and although I’m confident that support will help me resolve the issue and get my account back, I’m wondering about future log-in attempts.

I use a unique password for each of my accounts and I believe that really saved me this time but these attempts seem to be horribly common even according to Mike O’Brien’s message about account security. He mentioned that they could see attempts using specific usernames with specific passwords in attempts trying to find a match where people have been reusing passwords.

I have to ask, wouldn’t it save a lot of headaches if GW2 used more unique account names? I was hopeful for this when creating my account here but everyone on the forums and in-game can see my account name. Even using emails which are hidden can be horrible for an alternate choice because emails are used all over the place. Like using a gmail account would link your email, youtube, guild wars and guild wars 2 accounts all together—at the least—especially if you have your two games linked to utilize the HoM bonuses.

I’d really recommend and like to see hidden and unique usernames for logging-in to the game. Just a thought/suggestion.

Oh ok. So I am assuming that the email/account name option is going to be the same thing (just an email address). I can’t say that my email name is entirely secure as I still use it for registering or logging into other websites. With this, it is still safe to say that using email as a method for logging in isn’t entirely secure?

Keyloggers and screen captures aside… I’ve used multiple programs to check for this malware and turned up nothing… I’m assuming I’ve been compromised elsewhere. I’m wondering if my email is now on a kind of list for a hacker to try and if they will continue trying once the account is reopened. There was at least another post here on the forum of repeated suspensions that makes me think this is so. I was just wondering if the option to not use so common things like emails for log-in would help.

If you use your email address for guild wars 2 on a different website, the chance is that the hacker already got a grab on your email address i.e, log in. All they need now is a password. They could try different passwords, which result in “unauthorized attempts”. I would recommend you change your email address to log in and a new password.

For me, when they first announced that you could change your email address (~3-5 days before pre-release) I changed all of my accounts name to unique email that I created specifically for guild wars 2 only. When the storm of hacks came, I was able to avoid it.

I agree that would help and, in fact, was the very thing that I did for the first game. I used a closed email account that I never used for anything else to log in to GW but now that the email I use in GW2 is going to be active (authenticating, news, etc.) I need to use an email that I can access. Sure, it takes nothing to create an extra email account although I already have an extra account just for email security. It’s getting a little crazy having to create more and more alternate emails for everything. I’d be lost without writing them all down in a notebook.

Certainly using an alternate username/email is good for security, I’m just thinking it would be a lot easier if it was given as an option on Anet’s side like EVE Online does, for example.