Last week, we posted information on how to keep your account secure from hackers who have systematically stolen emails and passwords from other games and websites.
One of our community members, Jee, posted some great information on account security, and we thought it might be helpful to highlight it for people.
Why ArenaNet suspends accounts in cases of hacking:
By banning the account ArenaNet is further protecting you. If your account is being accessed by a third party. By closing it they are protecting your assets on the account and any personal information tied to it. It allows you and them to take the necessary steps to ensure the account is secure prior to allowing access to it again.
The word ban is over used, whereas the word suspension is a far better way to describe most of these situations.
I have played Eve Online for 8 years, where I have 12 accounts, and thousands of dollars (USD value) of assets on those accounts. A couple years back all 12 of those accounts became compromised due to a keylogger that went unnoticed on one of my computers. Within 7 minutes of the unauthorized login CCP had all the accounts suspended. I lost several hundred dollars worth of assets in those 7 minutes, and because of the nature of the economy in Eve Online, reimbursement is not possible regardless of circumstances. My accounts remain locked for over a week while I was forced to wait for them to verify a number of details.
Yes it was a huge inconvenience, and I was very disappointed I couldn’t play eve for nearly 2 weeks. But I am still to this day eternally grateful they acted as quickly as they did and took security seriously enough to do their due diligence before removing the sanctions.
You say ArenaNet banned your account prior to verifying the account was in it’s proper hands. Unfortunately the damage that can be done (not only to your account but to the economy in game when your account is used to launder/move in game currency on large scale for the purpose of RMT) in the time it takes to verify your identity and ensure that the account is being accessed by its proper owner can be quite serious. The safer way to approach this from a ArenaNet’s position is to close the account and take care of the details afterwards. That way no further damage is being done in the mean time.
As I mentioned before, I do sympathize with the inconvenience of loosing access to the game. But unfortunately in these circumstances, steps like these need to be taken to protect the interests of you, the community, and the long term success of the game.
Please feel free to ask me for any advice or suggestions on account security and steps you can take to ensure you do not become a victim of fraud.
Best of luck.
What you can do to protect yourself:
Change all passwords associated with all accounts, emails, and contact your bank or credit card company and request the issuing of new cards/numbers. If you are the victim of a keylogger, which is usually the case surrounding these events. The damage done is not limited to your guild wars account alone. Keep in mind, you will want to use another computer to change all your account information (across the board, paypal accounts, other game accounts, etc) until you have taken steps to ensure your computer is clean of any keyloggers. More often than not, a wipe and fresh install of windows is the only sure fire way to be secure.
If you have recently used your credit card or debit card for any online purchases with your computer (an example would be purchasing guild wars 2 and typing in your credit card number, expiry, CVV and billing information) check your statements or contact your bank/credit card company to insure there have been no unauthorized transactions.
Most often than not, the people or clandestine organizations that carry out these types of frauds are not limiting themselves to gaming accounts. They target individuals and commit a full range of identity theft.
Hope everything clears up for those effected and is done so in a timely manner.
Some steps you can take in an effort to have your account restored:
Check your email.
An email from sender ‘ArenaNet’ with subject title ‘Authorize login attempt’
Inside this email will be a link similar to the following:
https://account.guildwars2.com/allow-login?token=<A BUNCH OF NUMBERS AND LETTERS>&request=<A BUNCH OF NUMBERS AND LETTERS>&ip=<IP ADDRESS OF COMPUTER ATTEMPTING TO LOGIN TO YOUR ACCOUNT>If you have that email, it means that you or someone else attempted to access your account at the aforementioned IP Address.
If this is the case, the computer/IP Address trying to login would have to be authorized , and that can only occur by clinking the link mentioned above. So ask yourself this. Did you click that link thinking it was some routine email verification from ArenaNet?
If you can recall clicking that link, you may have inadvertently authorized access to your account by a third party. If you are absolutely sure you did not click that link, then it is entirely possible your email account is compromised as well?
Do you use the same password for your email account that you do your Guild Wars 2 account? If so then this is entirely likely if not just possible. Since your email login would be identical to that of your Guild Wars 2 account login, and if the passwords are the same then the person who committed the fraud would have been able to access your email very easily.
If none of the above applies, then you need consider your actions in game. Have you done anything in game that could be considered a violation of the End User License Agreement or the Terms of Service? It may be something that would appear minor and insignificant by your definition. Regardless of severity of the offence, it could very likely lead to temporary or permanent suspension of your Guild Wars 2 account.
If your Guild Wars 2 account has been suspended or closed, ArenaNet would likely have provided you with an email notifying you of the account closure and the reason for it. While I do not recommend publishing the contents of this email on a public forum, which is likely against EULA & TOS and could further damage your efforts to get your account restored. You do have resources you can review to further investigate the matter yourself, and after you have done all this. Then present your case to ArenaNet. Doing all I have mentioned will further increase your chances of having your account restored.
I wish you the best of luck.
Thank you, Jee, for being a great community member and helping other players get some insight into why we suspend accounts that are hacked and about other security issues.
Twitter: @ArenaNet, @GuildWars2
In-Game Name: Cm Regina Buenaobra