Guild Wars 2

Well, I guess that’s that. I had hoped consideration would be given since this isn’t a single incident and was happening to a lot of people. Anyways, policies are policies. Congratulations to the hackers and may they enjoy the fruits of my labors while I get back to scratch.

I really love the game but I’m not sure if I’ll be playing again. This really, literally, has me in tears.

You are aware that the hackers aren’t effected at all by a rollback of your account right?
Since the stuff that is gone is already gone and thus the hackers have already gained what they want to gain from it.

The fact that you have been hacked two times would also suggest that you need to take a look at your security, seeing as there is quite clearly something missing there.

Check this link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Account-Security-What-you-need-to-know/first#post3884150

And you believe I haven’t taken measures? Anyone would be firmer with account security after it’s happened. And yes I’m aware of it. It’s just that everything I’ve gotten since the start of the game, which is very little compared to most of the GW2 population since I’m more of a casual gamer, is gone.

IMHO, if they restored my account it wouldn’t affect the economy at all since I had very little to begin with. My best pride was my 2 million Karma, but I believe that’s little compared to what other people have.

Thank you wulfheart for posting this commnet.
I wanted to open a new topic for my comment, but this one fits better in here
so here it is my

ADVICE TO ALL HACKED PLAYERS

Hello everyone

I got hacked 2 hours after I logged off, while others have got hacked while even playing the game, being disconnected by the hacker.

A-net is only offering one time roll back as their “everyone is equal” and “you are the only one responsible” policy so no matter how safe your password was or how many different e-mails you use for online activity, your account is always susceptible to be re-hacked and you will no longer have a roll back granted to you

My advice for all of you payers who have had hacked accounts and have had your one time rollback, sell all the materials you gather and buy all the skins from TP and also the dyes. They are the only ones which are secure in your account for future hacks, not armors, weapons, minis or characters.

They can even use your soul bound items into the mystic forge so soul bound items are not safe either. They strip your characters off all armors they have if they are exotic or higher.

Sell everything you don’t use right way. Unlock the skins the moment you get them even if it means losing the item and not being able to sell it anymore. Spend your laurels even if you just buy junk you don’t need, buy gems with game gold and purchase gem store skins, toys and everything you can’t sell afterwards

This is the safest way for you in the future and sadly it is the only way if you plan to play this game years after the hack.

You could check if your e-mails have been compromised at these addresses provided by Forbes magazine, so at least you can feel better thinking it was not your fault why the account has been hacked
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/04/14/these-sites-tell-which-of-your-accounts-have-been-hacked/

Have a good day everyone!

Clearly not enough measures.
I have played since Headstart and I have yet to have a single unauthorized connection on my account. The fact that it has happened twice for you would suggest that the security is not high enough. Might be keyloggers or something on your computer, or a hacker with access to your email.

No, your restoration personally might very well not effect the economy. But if they allow it for you, they have to allow it for everyone.
And what happens when a couple of accounts with 1000s of gold get hacked and said gold spread, and then restored? Then we would suddenly have added 1000s of gold out of thin air, and that WOULD effect the economy of the game.

Interesting sites for checking.. seems mine is perfectly ok.. but events of the last week seem to suggest otherwise.. or is there something more sinister happened beyond mine or others control and we just haven’t heard anything… I am sure at some point it will all come out in the wash, literally!

Bloodstealer.5978:

Interesting sites for checking.. seems mine is perfectly ok.. but events of the last week seem to suggest otherwise.. or is there something more sinister happened beyond mine or others control and we just haven’t heard anything… I am sure at some point it will all come out in the wash, literally!

I remember someone in this forum said that they might have insiders who could give account information to hackers as long as their staff members say they have no vulnerability in their servers or databases and no information has been liked.
All these hacks generate a bad image to this company. Competition is really hard in this MMO business so it isn’t really far to think that the competitors could send some of their spies to get hired into A-net and ruin them from the inside.

Ronah.2869:

Bloodstealer.5978:

Interesting sites for checking.. seems mine is perfectly ok.. but events of the last week seem to suggest otherwise.. or is there something more sinister happened beyond mine or others control and we just haven’t heard anything… I am sure at some point it will all come out in the wash, literally!

I remember someone in this forum said that they might have insiders who could give account information to hackers as long as their staff members say they have no vulnerability in their servers or databases and no information has been liked.
All these hacks generate a bad image to this company. Competition is really hard in this MMO business so it isn’t really far to think that the competitors could send some of their spies to get hired into A-net and ruin them from the inside.

Nah I think that would be overstepping the mark just a tad…maybe, but if something more sinister out in the big world has gotten through some of the worlds biggest and baddest organisations, what would it take to get into smaller fry like ANET, BLIZ, etc… just we would never really be told about it. other than its our fault we all get hacked. Now I am sure sometimes that is not beyond the actual facts, but many of us do all we can to ensure we are as watertight as possible, with the tools available to us yet never seems to fill all the gaps apparently

To be fair if there actually was something that had infiltrated ArenaNets account-servers I would say that it would be WAY more people losing their accounts, and also losing it repeatedly.

And if that happened (not everyone posts about it on the forums, so we don’t know the actual numbers) I am rather sure that ArenaNet would check up on the security and make sure there was nothing spreading information from their servers.

They are not a bunch of kids in a basement, they are a experienced company with loads of experience people.

lordkrall, I hear you. But you don’t have to be a kitten about it and keep reminding me what an idiot I was that I wasn’t able to properly secure my account. Furthermore, you don’t see me ranting about how awful the game or support is. Please, if you don’t have anything more helpful to say, I’d prefer you not saying anything more.

And I understand about others wanting to get their accounts restored if they get hacked again. I was also stating that they might give consideration since this isn’t a lone incident. It’s been happening to a LOT of people lately and is so bad Customer Service is swamped. Last time it took 2 days to restore my account. This time it took more than a week and I had to post here to hopefully get my issue resolved.

And I also understand that I’m just a speck in the gaming community that even if I decided to leave the game it wouldn’t matter much to ANet or the GW2 community.

Anyways, I tried. I wasn’t given consideration. Hooray for the hackers.

But if they give consideration to some people, they would have to do it to EVERYONE at ALL TIME, and that WILL effect the economy quite a bit. And therefore they simply don’t do it for anyone.

It’s not just the computer(s) you play the game on. Any computer or device you used to log into the forum must be secure as well. Also the likely vector is your e-mail account if it’s on one of the public services like yahoo and gmail. Having a unique and not used anywhere else password for your e-mail account is a must.

If people have been hacked despite having taken the strictest security measures, this would seem it would be more a problem on Anet’s end would it not?

I’ve already ready many posts from people stating after people have got their accounts back, they’ve lost them again despite having authenticators and e-mail authentication. What’s Anet going to do? Just leave people high and dry?

They need to keep rolling people’s accounts back until they straighten their security issues out. This recent string of hacking is not the fault of the players, it’s clearly an issue on Anet’s end as the hackers have obviously found a hole in their security.

My account can be added to the lists of accounts being hacked. Like everybody else, a mobile authenticator was added to my account, except I may have caught it before it was activated. When I tried to log on this morning but couldn’t, I was able to change my password without getting the authentication message (at least 1 battle won).

If Anet wan’t to drive as many people away from Gw2 as possible, no better way to tell people they can’t help them after 1 rollback. Good luck with these people ever recommending the game to anyone.

Lordkrall – I would venture that only a very small fraction of people use, let alone even look at the forums. I would also guess that there are many people who only log on a couple times a week and may not know they are even hacked yet. Judging by how this section of the forums have exploded with hack posts, my guess would be a lot of people got hit.

If they gave multiple resets to people, what’s to stop people from getting together to scam the system? One person give another the login information. The second “hacks” the account and “steals” everything. Then the first person gets an full account restore. Rinse and repeat. If the “hacker” uses trial accounts where possible or buys them when on sale he doesn’t have to risk his main account.

One thing Gaile has said is they are currently banning a lot of gold sellers. These people are now taking over accounts they hacked previously but left sitting untouched. This may account for a lot of people getting hit now.

Astral Projections.7320:

If they gave multiple resets to people, what’s to stop people from getting together to scam the system? One person give another the login information. The second “hacks” the account and “steals” everything. Then the first person gets an full account restore. Rinse and repeat. If the “hacker” uses trial accounts where possible or buys them when on sale he doesn’t have to risk his main account.

One thing Gaile has said is they are currently banning a lot of gold sellers. These people are now taking over accounts they hacked previously but left sitting untouched. This may account for a lot of people getting hit now.

That would be Anet’s problem to sort out, not the players. If their security measures aren’t working, then it’s on them to fix the economy afterwords and deal with the consequences. It’s fairly easy for them to track if log-ins are out of the ordinary.

For instance, myself, only log in to play from 1 computer (which is almost everyday, and i’ve only ever played it from one computer. I occasionally log in to a second computer to browse the forums, this would also be very evident on my log in history… Now if suddenly someone logs in from say Korea or China (I’m in North America), something is now up.

If I gave a group of friends my log-in info in NA and suddenly my account was hacked, I can see where there might be reason to be suspicious. When the log in and items removed/sold is on the other side of the world, well it’s pretty obvious. If I also have no history with PM’ing people in game from the across the world, well that’s another dead give away.

They have many ways to track it.

From a couple of threads:
Gaile Gray
(Snip)
A number of RMTs and hackers have become quite desperate to continue their shady activities, and they are targeting vulnerable accounts. (Snip)

Behellagh.1468:
The breach wasn’t at their end. Someone got enough info from your system, likely though compromised e-mail account, to add an authenticator and then it was easy to jack and empty your account.
And since this wasn’t the first time and they made clear that only one restoration per account you are SOL. Maybe you need to evaluate your e-mail and computer security habits rather than lash out at them.
The critical part to emphasize is the following: “The breach wasn’t at their end. Someone got enough info from your system, likely though compromised e-mail account, to add an authenticator and then it was easy to jack and empty your account.”
Gaile Gray:
“This is absolutely true. The account hacks that people are posting about are not related to a Guild Wars 2 or ArenaNet security issue. The account compromises, or “hacks,” are happening because of personal security breaches, and most commonly they involve a “hack” of the e-mail account, too, which makes resolving them that much more difficult. (The hacker intercepts the e-mails, wipes the in-box, and the player never knows what happened.)
We will help, to the best of our ability, but ultimately, your personal security is your responsibility and there’s only so much we are able to offer. Repeated account restorations would be harmful to the game economy and therefore would have a negative impact on all players. Repeated restorations also creates an expectation that no matter how poor someone’s security practices are, ArenaNet will help them with yet another “do over.”
Please know, I never make light of security breaches. I fully understand and am sympathetic about how devastating a compromise can be! But statements like, “This guy was hacked, OMG it’s Anet’s fault” and nothing more than meaningless conspiracy theories, without a shred of fact behind them.
Please let us help you – we’re committed to doing so! Please share all your concerns and questions and requests within your ticket. But please do not cast about for someone else on which to place blame for a breach in personal security.”

nuggant.8239:
“I have done this and confirmed that my email account has not been compromised as I mentioned abobce care to expain how they got the info”
Gaile Gray
“I have no idea how your account was hacked. But it’s safe to say they did not get the information from us. How can I say that with such confidence? There are more than 3 million GW2 accounts. If there was a security breach, we’d see tens of thousands of tickets. There has not been an increase in hacked account tickets whatsoever; I verified that today. There has been an increase in the time that our agents require to answer tickets about the matter, so some people are concluding (falsely) that there’s some sort of issue, where in the past, compromised players were helped within hours and the matter never made it to the forums.
Some point to the forums to prove there’s a security issue. But if you see a “flood” of posts, you’re seeing a dozen. If there was a security issue, you’d see thousands.
I’m sorry you were hacked. But it’s not fair to conclude that “it’s on ArenaNet” when clearly, it is not. I strongly encourage you to read the Security Thread in its entirety to learn about this subject.”

You have speculation. She has access to the actual numbers and she says there isn’t an increase. Unless you want to call her either a liar or incompetent……..

Astral Projections.7320:

If they gave multiple resets to people, what’s to stop people from getting together to scam the system? One person give another the login information. The second “hacks” the account and “steals” everything. Then the first person gets an full account restore. Rinse and repeat. If the “hacker” uses trial accounts where possible or buys them when on sale he doesn’t have to risk his main account.

One thing Gaile has said is they are currently banning a lot of gold sellers. These people are now taking over accounts they hacked previously but left sitting untouched. This may account for a lot of people getting hit now.

My account was not “sitting untouched” though. I already took measures to secure my account before my first hack, used stronger measures t secure my account after that, but I still got hacked. If it had been just a single incident, I would have just submitted my ticket, hoped for the best but know that I may not be getting my items back. I wouldn’t even be posting here. But since this seems to be happening to a lot of people recently, that’s why I’m more active about getting consideration since this isn’t an isolated incident. And no, banning the gold sellers doesn’t help much, especially the people who got hacked.

And about the idea of a bunch of people getting their accounts “hacked” to get double what they have, I’m pretty sure ANet would have ways to know if it was intentional. Furthermore, people who keep getting hacked for no apparent reason would be suspicious.

I’m pretty sure if ANet really did look into my account they’d know that my account was logged in from another location and for some reason my e-mail authentication was turned off. But I think whoever studied my account just looked at “Already had account restored” and probably never bothered to look further. Big loss on my end, but like I said, I’m just a speck in the community, no big deal for them.

Anyways, I thank the people who’ve replied here, both who tried helping my case and those who’ve told me I don’t deserve consideration. Please no more arguing over this. I guess I just wanted to say how disappointed I was.

And like I said, whether I continue playing or not doesn’t matter to ANet. Either way it’s my loss.

If your email authentication was turned off it sounds very much like your email is compromised, which would mean that no matter how many times you change password or whatever, they will still get access to your account.

The thing is, they won’t do anything other than giving your account back after the first restoration, since that is their policy. If they start going against said policy it would create a massive kitten-storm with people demanding the same special treatment and so on.

Be happy that they help you get back your account at all, seeing as they would have all right in the world to simply ban the account when it is repeatedly hacked and used for rule-breaking things.

@wulfheart
“I’m pretty sure if ANet really did look into my account they’d know that my account was logged in from another location and for some reason my e-mail authentication was turned off. But I think whoever studied my account just looked at “Already had account restored” and probably never bothered to look further. Big loss on my end, but like I said, I’m just a speck in the community, no big deal for them.”

That right there tells you that your email was hacked.

Gaile Gray
Account and E-mail Compromise Incidents
“We are finding that nearly every time a game account is compromised, the e-mail account is also compromised. Many times, hackers are clever enough to mask their access to the e-mail account, rendering that illicit access invisible to the user. That is, the legitimate e-mail account holder is not even aware that the e-mail account is being accessed by a hacker. But although we often are told “My e-mail is secure” we also frequently note that the account hacker has deleted authentication authorization requests related to the hacking location, or has deleted e-mailed receipts. The hacker hides his access by removing auth e-mails and steals the serial code and/or order number and deletes it so the legitimate owner no longer can find that vital info.
You can see this yourself when you read forum threads and the player says, “I cannot locate my receipt e-mail” or “I must have deleted my receipt.” Actually, in most cases that statement points to the e-mail account having been hacked, with the various “proofs of ownership” now being solely in the hands of the hacker (after being deleted so the owner can’t get to them). And, sadly, you see this when someone states “The only authentication e-mails are my own access points” but one or more additional authorization requests were sent but were deleted by the hacker.
Basically, even if someone believes his/her e-mail is secure, a hacker very often is in the account and is intercepting mails or authorizing access to the stolen account.
Specific questions to ask if your GW2 account has been compromised:
Do you have e-mail or mobile authentication? Great!
Are you using or have you every used your GW2 password anywhere else? That’s a recipe for disaster.
Are you using a unique e-mail account for GW2 only? That’s a very good idea.
Have you reset your e-mail password recently?
Do you have authentication on your e-mail account, where it verifies access to your e-mail account through a mobile device or an alternate e-mail account?”

lordkrall.7241:

But if they give consideration to some people, they would have to do it to EVERYONE at ALL TIME, and that WILL effect the economy quite a bit. And therefore they simply don’t do it for anyone.

I would hazard a guess there are a lot more accounts being hacked than what we see reported/deleted here and repeatedly hacked … even the hacksters can read forums and know there is a delay in getting accounts restored so they bide their time to strike again I guess… seems changing passwords and such are making little difference as well…. time will tell I guess

@AstralProjections, @ lordkrall and @Inculpatus cedo

I have read your answers to all these people whom account have been hacked or they have been in other distress, and wonder have you even understand how much harm you are doing to ArenaNet, when you are giving these judgemental statements. I can read from your answers that any of you haven’t worked ever in custom service or in HelpDesk. If you would have done that, your tone would be totally different. You don’t have even slightes idea, what means to be in support. You are all lack of empathy, you are not professional at all, and most of all, every time when you judge some poor one in here, you make them hate even more ArenaNet and their policy.

Fortunately, I haven’t been hacked yet and I haven’t been in your teeth in that way. But your lack of empathy really makes me sad. I think in these cases you should leave answering to Gaile. You can give advices to the people in little things, should they contact to the support or what to do. But these things where are involved strong feelings, you should leave the answering to those who have been trained for that kind of situations.

I have seen that even Gaile have lost her touch time to time in these hard situations, and you who have no skills are totally incompetent to handle hard situations like these.

So please, if you don’t want to harm more ArenaNet, do not touch these sensitive subjects.

Astral Projections.7320:

If they gave multiple resets to people, what’s to stop people from getting together to scam the system? One person give another the login information. The second “hacks” the account and “steals” everything. Then the first person gets an full account restore. Rinse and repeat. If the “hacker” uses trial accounts where possible or buys them when on sale he doesn’t have to risk his main account.

One thing Gaile has said is they are currently banning a lot of gold sellers. These people are now taking over accounts they hacked previously but left sitting untouched. This may account for a lot of people getting hit now.

Really they are banning lots of them.. except lots of them being the original account holders.. what is that actually doing, not a lot.. most gold seleers use hacked accounts to do it from and then they run to the next.. banning goldsellers is trivial because of this. Add to that they obviously have a strong market to outside of using hacked accounts so getting one seller banned does very little except to provide ANET with another small fee for a new account purchase….. on one habd they might loose a legit player through anger and frustration, they pick up a new sell from a goldseller opening his/her next account.

Add to that .. take a google around the interweebs and see how many sites have GW2 accounts up for sale…. doesn’t take too many brain cells to see where the easy wins come from for these kind of people.

Sinope.5630:

@AstralProjections, @ lordkrall and @Inculpatus cedo

I have read your answers to all these people whom account have been hacked or they have been in other distress, and wonder have you even understand how much harm you are doing to ArenaNet, when you are giving these judgemental statements. I can read from your answers that any of you haven’t worked ever in custom service or in HelpDesk. If you would have done that, your tone would be totally different. You don’t have even slightes idea, what means to be in support. You are all lack of empathy, you are not professional at all, and most of all, every time when you judge some poor one in here, you make them hate even more ArenaNet and their policy.

Fortunately, I haven’t been hacked yet and I haven’t been in your teeth in that way. But your lack of empathy really makes me sad. I think in these cases you should leave answering to Gaile. You can give advices to the people in little things, should they contact to the support or what to do. But these things where are involved strong feelings, you should leave the answering to those who have been trained for that kind of situations.

I have seen that even Gaile have lost her touch time to time in these hard situations, and you who have no skills are totally incompetent to handle hard situations like these.

So please, if you don’t want to harm more ArenaNet, do not touch these sensitive subjects.

I’ve mostly quoted Gaile Gray herself. You may refer any comments about incompetence, no skills and lack of empathy to her. But if she doesn’t know what the answers are, then who does?

I do have sympathy, I happen to believe though you and the others are wrong on several important facts. And if you are wrong, then being sympathetic only goes so far. You are going by your emotions here and not by the facts as told by Gaile herself.

(Edit: I was being sarcastic here. I wasn’t claiming that Gaile is incompetent, etc. But trying to imply that the poster doesn’t understand the answers given by Gaile or others and is responding emotionally. Not my best effort)

Once they have locked this game behind a pay-wall, gold sellers need to hack accounts to promote their “business”. Or you believe they will buy GW2 accounts to do that?
make this game a free to play like most of others and then the number of hacking will decrease because they can make as many accounts as they want.

Also, f2p games have pin codes for bank, or deleting characters and others have pin codes even for playing a character
Also, deleting a character in a F2P game takes 7 days giving this way time for the payer to save his character by accidental deleting it or if hackers delete it
See games like AION, Dragon nest, TERA, Perfect World, Scarlet Blade etc.

Buy hey, whenever we ask for more secure accounts the answer is “you guys need to secure it yourselves, the problem is at your end” and then get mocked by forum users like Astral, Smooth, lord and others. and sometimes even by the A-Net themselves
For what i know, these can be hackers themselves judging from how much they try to defend A-Net saying that we are the only ones to blame. They might know the breach in their selectivity and they don’t want others to open their eyes

Astral Projections.7320:

Sinope.5630:

@AstralProjections, @ lordkrall and @Inculpatus cedo

I have read your answers to all these people whom account have been hacked or they have been in other distress, and wonder have you even understand how much harm you are doing to ArenaNet, when you are giving these judgemental statements. I can read from your answers that any of you haven’t worked ever in custom service or in HelpDesk. If you would have done that, your tone would be totally different. You don’t have even slightes idea, what means to be in support. You are all lack of empathy, you are not professional at all, and most of all, every time when you judge some poor one in here, you make them hate even more ArenaNet and their policy.

Fortunately, I haven’t been hacked yet and I haven’t been in your teeth in that way. But your lack of empathy really makes me sad. I think in these cases you should leave answering to Gaile. You can give advices to the people in little things, should they contact to the support or what to do. But these things where are involved strong feelings, you should leave the answering to those who have been trained for that kind of situations.

I have seen that even Gaile have lost her touch time to time in these hard situations, and you who have no skills are totally incompetent to handle hard situations like these.

So please, if you don’t want to harm more ArenaNet, do not touch these sensitive subjects.

I’ve mostly quoted Gaile Gray herself. You may refer any comments about incompetence, no skills, lack of empathy and incompetence to her. If she doesn’t know what the answers are then you most certainly do not.

This answer what you gave Astral, totally show your incompetent of the handling hard situations. You have quotet in this post Gaile a lot, but you haven’t understand what kind of harm you have done to her and ArenaNet.

Astral I kindly ask you, apply to the HelpDesk, get the proper training in there and work 20 years in there and then come back in here, and read what you have written in these forums and you will see what kind of harm you have done.

Never ever put blame to the Gaile’s neck, if you have quotet to her. You might have quotet in that way, that it makes situation even worse what it is.

Astral Projections.7320:

Behellagh.1468:
The breach wasn’t at their end. Someone got enough info from your system, likely though compromised e-mail account, to add an authenticator and then it was easy to jack and empty your account.
And since this wasn’t the first time and they made clear that only one restoration per account you are SOL. Maybe you need to evaluate your e-mail and computer security habits rather than lash out at them.
The critical part to emphasize is the following: “The breach wasn’t at their end. Someone got enough info from your system, likely though compromised e-mail account, to add an authenticator and then it was easy to jack and empty your account.”

Excuse me? I’m not one who is complaining, been hacked or is lashing out. I’m simply stating that players need to secure all system they use to access both the game and the forum since the login info is identical. Also that good password “hygiene”, that is using unique passwords on all accounts, especially your email, is way to reduce your chances of having your account stolen.

Astral Projections.7320:

@wulfheart

Do you have e-mail or mobile authentication? Yes, but it was turned off for reasons I do not know why.
Are you using or have you every used your GW2 password anywhere else? Nope, my GW2 password was unique. I only made it for my GW2 account.
Are you using a unique e-mail account for GW2 only? Yes, I have a different e-mail account, or accounts, for everything else.
Do you have authentication on your e-mail account, where it verifies access to your e-mail account through a mobile device or an alternate e-mail account? I had e-mail authentication, for some reason it was turned off"

I also checked my e-mail. It wasn’t logged in from any unknown IP.

How many times do I have to say this: My e-mail account was not compromised. It was never accessed from any unknown IP. My e-mail authentication was turned off. I always had it on. And I TRIED to turn it off just to see how people can turn it off and there’s no way to do that unless you switch to Mobile, which I didn’t.

Behellagh.1468:

Astral Projections.7320:

Behellagh.1468:
The breach wasn’t at their end. Someone got enough info from your system, likely though compromised e-mail account, to add an authenticator and then it was easy to jack and empty your account.
And since this wasn’t the first time and they made clear that only one restoration per account you are SOL. Maybe you need to evaluate your e-mail and computer security habits rather than lash out at them.
The critical part to emphasize is the following: “The breach wasn’t at their end. Someone got enough info from your system, likely though compromised e-mail account, to add an authenticator and then it was easy to jack and empty your account.”

Excuse me? I’m not one who is complaining, been hacked or is lashing out. I’m simply stating that players need to secure all system they use to access both the game and the forum since the login info is identical. Also that good password “hygiene”, that is using unique passwords on all accounts, especially your email, is way to reduce your chances of having your account stolen.

Sorry, that was a quote from another thread where you were responding to someone else, I left it in because Gaile’s answer below it referenced it and her reply didn’t make sense without it. (I didn’t want to put in a thread link as I’ve gotten infractions before for doing so).

I might have missed something somewhere, but how can you know for sure that your email account isn’t compromised? As far as I know I am completely unable to see if any other IPs than my own is connected, at least with and hotmail and gmail.

There are two possible scenarios here:
1: ArenaNet have a security breach.
2: You have a security breach.

If 1 was the case we would have seen a massive influx of reports, which Gaile claim that there have not been, and why would she lie about that?

lordkrall.7241:

I might have missed something somewhere, but how can you know for sure that your email account isn’t compromised? As far as I know I am completely unable to see if any other IPs than my own is connected, at least with and hotmail and gmail.

There are two possible scenarios here:
1: ArenaNet have a security breach.
2: You have a security breach.

If 1 was the case we would have seen a massive influx of reports, which Gaile claim that there have not been, and why would she lie about that?

You only see forum posts.. not everyone raises tickets and comes to the forums… very small proportion of people actually come here in the first place.
The question you really should be asking.. would ANET announce if they did have issues .. I think not personally. GG is simply towing a line set in stone, veering off that line would be more than her jobs worth. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying that there has been anything untoward happen back a HQ but something has definitely happened somewhere, your just not wanting to look beyond the forums.. take a look around the other social media sites used, other forums etc then consider how many others may also be in the ticketing system.. must be hefty for them to of come out and apologise for the additional time its now taking to get through the list of unhappy customers.

Bloodstealer.5978:

You only see forum posts.. not everyone raises tickets via come to the forums… very small proportion of people actually come here in the first place.
The question you really should be asking.. would ANET announce if they did have issues .. I think not perosnallly

So you are basically claiming that Gaile is blatantly lying when she states that there have not been a massive increase in tickets about hacked accounts?

If there was a security breach, they it is extremely unlikely that they would not inform the player-base and tell them to change passwords and so on.

One of the main things I’m wondering about is why was my e-mail authentication switched off? I am sure that I had it activated. I’m sure that my e-mail was not compromised, but yeah after this I’m thinking of making a new e-mail and finding ways to switch my GW2 account over to that e-mail if that’s possible.

lordkrall, I understand what you’re trying to do and I think that it’s admirable that you stand by that it was not ANet’s fault. But you do it in a way that aggravates more than helps.

I’m not saying ANet is at fault. I’m just also giving information here that I know that my account is safe and also giving details as to how “secure” I am. No, I don’t have 5 antivirus programs plus 3 anti-malware programs running on my computer, nor do I reset my password at regular intervals using randomly generated passwords, but I’m as secure as most people are. But even with such security, I was hacked. It’s also a heads up to let ANet know that people who secure their accounts can be hacked and hopefully to find out, if possible, as to how that person was hacked. At least they can do a thorough check on their end just to be sure. I’m sure that they do have a lot of security measures in place but you can’t deny the fact that kitten can happen.

Trying to ignore it and just saying that you’re 100% sure of your security without doing a check can lead to disaster.

Kinda like what happened with that developer and the Facebook security team. Well, it didn’t turn out to be a disaster. But it could have been.

lordkrall.7241:

Bloodstealer.5978:

You only see forum posts.. not everyone raises tickets via come to the forums… very small proportion of people actually come here in the first place.
The question you really should be asking.. would ANET announce if they did have issues .. I think not perosnallly

So you are basically claiming that Gaile is blatantly lying when she states that there have not been a massive increase in tickets about hacked accounts?

If there was a security breach, they it is extremely unlikely that they would not inform the player-base and tell them to change passwords and so on.

Try reading my post again…

No where did I say she was lying.. I said “don’t get me wrong I am not saying there has been anything untoward happen back at HQ”
But even if there was Gaile would likely not be able to say anything outside a script either way unless ANET big wigs themselves decide on it.

Playing a white Knight sometimes means you have to look outside that little box and consider all da worldly things gwassopper

You guys remember the force password change back in October when Blizzard’s database of account information was hacked. Remember when Anet decided to force everyone in GW2 to change their password because of that?

I do and it wasn’t even Anet who was hacked, it was Blizzard’s database and Anet took the step to force everyone to change their password to ensure if someone had people’s email addresses and Blizzard passwords they wouldn’t try it on GW2. So to anyone who says Anet doesn’t care. They took that step back then, and it wasn’t even on their side where the information was stolen.

Bloodstealer.5978:

lordkrall.7241:

Bloodstealer.5978:

You only see forum posts.. not everyone raises tickets via come to the forums… very small proportion of people actually come here in the first place.
The question you really should be asking.. would ANET announce if they did have issues .. I think not perosnallly

So you are basically claiming that Gaile is blatantly lying when she states that there have not been a massive increase in tickets about hacked accounts?

If there was a security breach, they it is extremely unlikely that they would not inform the player-base and tell them to change passwords and so on.

Try reading my post again…

No where did I say she was lying.. I said “don’t get me wrong I am not saying there has been anything untoward happen back at HQ”
But even if there was Gaile would likely not be able to say anything outside a script either way unless ANET big wigs themselves decide on it.

Playing a white Knight sometimes means you have to look outside that little box and consider all da worldly things gwassopper

Ahhhhh. Ok. So since she specifically said there hasn’t been a massive increase in hacked accounts, if you are right then either people in the know lied to her, which is illegal and could lead to lawsuits if it came out. Or they told her the truth and she came to the forum and outright lied. (Tsk tsk Gaile!) Or ANet is so incompetent that they can’t understand their own metrics and see the truth.

Good to know.

Ellieanna.5027:

You guys remember the force password change back in October when Blizzard’s database of account information was hacked. Remember when Anet decided to force everyone in GW2 to change their password because of that?

I do and it wasn’t even Anet who was hacked, it was Blizzard’s database and Anet took the step to force everyone to change their password to ensure if someone had people’s email addresses and Blizzard passwords they wouldn’t try it on GW2. So to anyone who says Anet doesn’t care. They took that step back then, and it wasn’t even on their side where the information was stolen.

And your point being.

Esy to put out a statement advising that when a competitor gets hit… as I am sure those same customers would do should ANET get hit…. that isn’t the issue .
The discussion was centred around if there was something of that magnitude happening back at Anet HQ would there be an official statement made, maybe even a temporary shutdown of servers while they sort it out or would they play it down and hope they can move fast enough to close the issue before it became virulent .. ..
I think given a choice we would all prefer a statement to take preventative actions, even after the event.. that’s just being prudent, but when it actually happens and potentially on such a larger scale, with the potential to have wider reaching impact ……well that’s a whole different ball game with all manner of knock on effects.

Oh, so why did Blizzard do it then?
Why would Blizzard announce something like that, but ArenaNet wouldn’t?

Sounds like you simply want to feed some sort of conspiracy about ArenaNet or something like that, rather than actually looking at the facts.

Astral Projections.7320:

Bloodstealer.5978:

lordkrall.7241:

Bloodstealer.5978:

You only see forum posts.. not everyone raises tickets via come to the forums… very small proportion of people actually come here in the first place.
The question you really should be asking.. would ANET announce if they did have issues .. I think not perosnallly

So you are basically claiming that Gaile is blatantly lying when she states that there have not been a massive increase in tickets about hacked accounts?

If there was a security breach, they it is extremely unlikely that they would not inform the player-base and tell them to change passwords and so on.

Try reading my post again…

No where did I say she was lying.. I said “don’t get me wrong I am not saying there has been anything untoward happen back at HQ”
But even if there was Gaile would likely not be able to say anything outside a script either way unless ANET big wigs themselves decide on it.

Playing a white Knight sometimes means you have to look outside that little box and consider all da worldly things gwassopper

Ahhhhh. Ok. So since she specifically said there hasn’t been a massive increase in hacked accounts, if you are right then either people in the know lied to her, which is illegal and could lead to lawsuits if it came out. Or they told her the truth and she came to the forum and outright lied. (Tsk tsk Gaile!) Or ANet is so incompetent that they can’t understand their own metrics and see the truth.

Good to know.

I think the only one showing incompetence here might be you, sorry to say.. your reading into something that isn’t there to be read.. its a “what if” scenario, not a “she has lied or has been lied to” .. stop letting your brain put words into your own mouth and take off the rose tinted blinkers… you might just read better.

lordkrall.7241:

Oh, so why did Blizzard do it then?
Why would Blizzard announce something like that, but ArenaNet wouldn’t?

Sounds like you simply want to feed some sort of conspiracy about ArenaNet or something like that, rather than actually looking at the facts.

I am not feeding anything.. I was actually putting it out as a “what if” ….

Look we can all see that you enjoy playing a lap dancers to the Gods in this forum so lets hope such events don’t happen to you shall we, I would hate those facts to come bite ya where it might hurt most.

Bloodstealer.5978:

I am not feeding anything.. I was actually putting it out as a “what if” ….

Look we can all see that you enjoy playing a lap dancers to the Gods in this forum so lets hope such events don’t happen to you shall we, I would hate those facts to come bite ya where it might hurt most.

So, you are not going to answer the question then?
Might be a good idea to not make statements like that if you are not prepared to actually back them up.

<3 gentlemen <3

we all know mac’s cant get virus’s.

How can I answer what ANET would and wouldn’t do.. that kind of thing is something I am not parlez to.. then again neither are you, so I throw the question back at ya.
Bliz and ANET are different companies, because one does something does that in fact mean everyone else would follow the same path.. are you really that naïve?

And back what up.. it was a “what if” scenario, there is nothing to back up… sheez have you got past 3rd grade yet?

Bloodstealer.5978:

How can I answer what ANET would and wouldn’t do.. that kind of thing is something I am not parlez to.. then again neither are you, so I throw the question back at ya.
Bliz and ANET are different companies, because one does something does that in fact mean everyone else would follow the same path.. are you really that naïve?

And back what up.. it was a “what if” scenario, there is nothing to back up… sheez have you got past 3rd grade yet?

Yes, we know you don’t have anything to back up your “statements” but the account forum is not the place to be making random paranoid remarks.

Bloodstealer.5978:

Astral Projections.7320:

Bloodstealer.5978:

How can I answer what ANET would and wouldn’t do.. that kind of thing is something I am not parlez to.. then again neither are you, so I throw the question back at ya.
Bliz and ANET are different companies, because one does something does that in fact mean everyone else would follow the same path.. are you really that naïve?

And back what up.. it was a “what if” scenario, there is nothing to back up… sheez have you got past 3rd grade yet?

Yes, we know you don’t have anything to back up your “statements” but the account forum is not the place to be making random paranoid remarks.

Now I really am getting paranoid.. is this the same person with two accounts, is it one account with a bot or just twins acting out the same god scenario…

You seem to have the same lack of reading comprehension though, so twins it might be… if I wanted to make it a statement I would of worded in a very different way rather than a “what if” ya know… sigh!

The account forum is not the place for random speculations. It is specifically to answer people questions. For this, facts only are stated as much as they can be known. The answers to the questions are backed up with citations and links to relevant threads.

This is not a debate forum but an ‘ask a question to be answered forum’. Your speculations as to whether or not ANet has a hacking problem are in the wrong forum. If you wish to debate this you should open a thread in the Discussion Forum.

I only see “Blame the kitten d victim for wearing provocative cloths” mentality all over the answers in these threads. So no wonder why many players rage about this security measure they have

My only suggestion for an alternate solution for this is to require payment for a restoration beyond the first. How that value is determined would certainly be questionable, however (would not be able to follow the “we are all equal”, mentality, IMO).

BTW, ran an email address I KNOW was compromised thru those forbes links and they were 100% incorrect…..which leads me to question both their capability and potential for nefarious use. Did I just give every hacker in the universe that email address (don’t use that one any longer anyway).

Brother Grimm.5176:

My only suggestion for an alternate solution for this is to require payment for a restoration beyond the first. How that value is determined would certainly be questionable, however (would not be able to follow the “we are all equal”, mentality, IMO).

Snip

From what Gaile has said previously, it’s not the cost to ANet that’s the problem, though I imagine it’s a consideration, but the cost to the economy. Everyone gets one free pass, no matter how much gold they had or (extreme example here) if they had a whole bank full of Legendaries that were taken out, sold and then replaced by ANet.

The cumulative cost of injecting gold, mats, Legendaries, etc.. over and over again as nonsecure accounts are repeatedly hacked and restored would add considerably to inflation. There are people who would not bother to properly secure their accounts if they know that all they have to do is make a ticket and wait a few days.

It’s harsh on the people who are hacked successive times and tried as best they could to secure their account but ANet has to think of the health of the game before they think of individual accounts.

game economies are just plain useless. you don’t make a living through gold, silver or copper coins. So, if one item costs 1 copper or 1 mil golds it is not a big deal. if you are the only one with a legendary weapon or if everyone has one it really not an issue.
There is no economy in any game . It is just an illusion that gives you the impression you are more special then others. so “everyone is equal” is completely contradicted by the game economy.