Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone.

This thread is purely informative.

From various in-game and outside-game environments I know about the fact that a lot of accounts have been hacked recently and exploited to spam gold-selling messages to the players.
Usually the account names selling gold were named meaningless like “Dsfhoiaaaa” for obvious reasons. In the past few days we have noticed that the names started to sound as if they were regular accounts with normal names, which is getting us worried about our own accounts. It is almost obvious that these accounts have been exploited to sell gold and eventually they are all getting mass reported by players, which ends up with a ban procedure.
In the past 2-3 weeks my guild members were reporting disturbing spammers messages. It even happens that we get 14 whispers in 9 minutes but mostly it’s an average of 10 whispers per day.

For the sake of our enjoyment with this wonderful game I hearby urge ArenaNet and the rest of community to take appropriate steps to hinder those who are responsible for this act of delinquency.

Please share your observations and concerns. Once this thread is acknowledged by the developers I would like to have it closed for the sake of my own account.

Best regards,
Lummi

My account was hacked yesterday morning at 4 am ( hour of changing password trough email) at 3.40 am that i was in game before logging out i received a goldselling spam for 1000g at 10usd …..one of my guildmate hacked too received the same…probably a simple coincidence probably…..i hope Anet will investigate about

@Anziio, 1000g for 10USD seems like a tempting offer. Did you visit the site linked by the goldseller? Provided them with any info, like your e-mail address etc? If so, this most likely looks like they’re hacking people who actually visit the goldselling sites. I might be wrong though.
Anyway, just to be cautious, I’d suggest not visiting any goldselling sites and changing mail/gw2 password if you receive such a message ingame.
I already added info about it in my guild’s Message of the Day and I call all the guild leaders to do the same, for the sake of your guildies.

A lot of people are worried about this recently, as the goldsellers spam messages are received more frequently.
Looking forward to Anet providing us with additional account security options. That would save the players a lot of stress and Anet a lot of work with investigating and rerolling the hacked accounts.

No absolutely not, and i never did it before

Luminarin.2301, the very best thing you and your guild mates can do is to report and block EVERY single gold spammer you receive a whisper or in game mail from. Do not assume that someone else will report them. ArenaNet needs those reports so they can ban those accounts. They will not go away by ignoring them.

Anziio.8392, just going to the gold seller site exposes your computer (or phone) to a huge number of possible security attacks. If you actually loaded their site into your browser, you really need to check your system for possible malware and then just to be safe, change your email and game passwords (AFTER you are sure your system is clean). Those sites are run by professionals that want to steal your information and then use or sell it.

The easiest way for these thieves to get access to your game account is to first get access to your email account. Once they have your email account credentials, they can use them to gain access to every game you have ever played using that email account. They just send out a a bunch of password reset requests to every game they are interested in and then act on the games that respond.

Gaile has stated that in almost every case, people with stolen GW2 accounts also had their email credentials stolen as well. While it would be simple to steal a game account via a compromised email account, it is not very likely that a compromised game account would give the thieves access to the email. So to protect your game account, you really need to put some serious effort in protecting your email account information. That would be a very good step to take to ensure your account security.

Luminarin.2301:

Hello everyone.

This thread is purely informative.

From various in-game and outside-game environments I know about the fact that a lot of accounts have been hacked recently and exploited to spam gold-selling messages to the players.

Making such claims as FACTs is not something you actually have hard data to support. I do feel there has been an increase in PLAYER email account compromises lately and that has resulted in GW2 accounts being hacked but this is not anything new. There may be an actual increase, but since we don’t have hard numbers, stating it as FACT is an exaggeration of the actual situation.

I have made the suggestion that Support verify each user that submits an email based request (in order to stop the “change my password” / “sure, done.” simplicity of the current support policy, but have not had much success in obtaining support from players or Gaile in that consideration.

Believe the hackers maybe gold farmers. I would like to say that my e-mail address is not a normally e-mail. I am think they may have gotten my e-mail address from the time when steam accounts was hacked, long long time ago. Gold farmers are from China. Also there is a fact guild wars 2 is starting in China. The hackers are either from WvW or gold farmers.

To Anet thank you for getting my account working so much love!!!!!
I had four cookie tracking spyware or virus on my computer and I am running a virus scanner always. So I don’t know how it got on my computer.

I am from Canada bot China sometimes I play guild wars on my friends computer but it would be from Canada not China why would I want to travel to China?

To help increase security maybe match credit card information with with location of Ip address. Account locked from region or country. If some one is playing a game or going to another country have that person inform anet before they go. If they wish to play guild wars. Also make them tell you how long they are staying at Certen country or region

I would also like to have an account ban for any one in China trying to access my my Guild CE account.

Any way Anet don’t be down If you people are stressing out. There is alot players gamers who are big big fans of you. Who will support you and got your back

rohan king of gods.4238:

Believe the hackers maybe gold farmers. I would like to say that my e-mail address is not a normally e-mail. I am think they may have gotten my e-mail address from the time when steam accounts was hacked, long long time ago. Gold farmers are from China. Also there is a fact guild wars 2 is starting in China. The hackers are either from WvW or gold farmers.

To Anet thank you for getting my account working so much love!!!!!
I had four cookie tracking spyware or virus on my computer and I am running a virus scanner always. So I don’t know how it got on my computer.

Have you ever logged in to the forums via your phone or another computer? That could be where the malware was/is.

mtpelion.4562:

rohan king of gods.4238:

Believe the hackers maybe gold farmers. I would like to say that my e-mail address is not a normally e-mail. I am think they may have gotten my e-mail address from the time when steam accounts was hacked, long long time ago. Gold farmers are from China. Also there is a fact guild wars 2 is starting in China. The hackers are either from WvW or gold farmers.

To Anet thank you for getting my account working so much love!!!!!
I had four cookie tracking spyware or virus on my computer and I am running a virus scanner always. So I don’t know how it got on my computer.

Have you ever logged in to the forums via your phone or another computer? That could be where the malware was/is.

nope when I debate it is on youtube, I never using my phone on forums too much work. Forums do not have enough freedom of speech for me to debate or talk on forums hence I like youtube.

any way at the end of the day this is just a game. Why would some one go out of their way to hack stuff in a game is beyond me. Gold farmers need to get a real job! There are more important things in life!

Anet team can take my ideas or suggestion or not, this my opinion. I don’t see why they need to delete my comments or topic links on this. I don’t have to play or spend money on anet games in the future. I am here because I choose to be!

your not the one with a hacked account!

Check your anet data
I have all CE of guildwars,including guild wars 2
I have bought many things from anet store
I am known on gaming forums and youtube as blackdreamhunk, the bomb! ON youtube I respected for ideas! youtube, I am known as blackdreamhunk2

Edit is your friend. =)

At the end of the day it is Anet who is responsible for hacked accounts not the end user! It is easy for moderators to what ever they want on forums. I like youtube because it has real freedom of speech!

Your looking at the guy who helped anet with nightfall and fractions by giving ideas fourms. I remember pvpers calling me every name in book because I said anet should dream bigger, hence guild wars 2.

I was there from the beginning of guild wars

rohan king of gods.4238:

At the end of the day it is Anet who is responsible for hacked accounts not the end user!

No it’s not and the EULA (that you agreed to when starting the account) plainly states it’s the USER who is responsible for account security. Your personal feelings on this matter are only relevant in your own mind.

rohan king of gods.4238:

At the end of the day it is Anet who is responsible for hacked accounts not the end user! It is easy for moderators to what ever they want on forums. I like youtube because it has real freedom of speech!

They would be responsible, IF and only if, the security breach was on their side. Which is most likely not the case, and as such it is the responsibility of the users to make sure their accounts are safe.

It is not the responsibility of the police to make sure your door is locked at night/when you are not home and so on after all. They will help you if something happens, but the responsibility is still yours.

lordkrall.7241:

rohan king of gods.4238:

At the end of the day it is Anet who is responsible for hacked accounts not the end user! It is easy for moderators to what ever they want on forums. I like youtube because it has real freedom of speech!

They would be responsible, IF and only if, the security breach was on their side. Which is most likely not the case, and as such it is the responsibility of the users to make sure their accounts are safe.

It is not the responsible of the police to make sure your door is locked at night/when you are not home and so on after all. They will help you if something happens, but the responsibility is still yours.

I am giving suggestions on how to improve security and fair enough, what if the user does not know there is a breach on there end what then? Not all consumers are tech savvy

For me I have anti virus running always, I did not know I had breach last night until anet tech guys I had one. I did a virus scan and found 4.

I want to add I got a gold farmer trying to text me last night too as well.

rohan king of gods.4238:

I am giving suggestions on how to improve security and fair enough, what if the user does not know there is a breach on there end what then? Not all consumers are tech savvy

Still not sure how this leads to Anet being responsible for an account being compromised from another location. Your suggestion IS in place…it’s called mobile authentication. The flaw in that system is that hacking the users email account bypasses most security because Anet will consider all requests coming from the associated email account as verification of the account owner (and they are not wrong to do so).

My suggestion would almost 100% plug that hole (a compromised email hacker without intimate knowledge of the account and/or the account owners financial information (CC #) would not be able to make an account changing request go thru).

rohan king of gods.4238:

I am giving suggestions on how to improve security and fair enough, what if the user does not know there is a breach on there end what then? Not all consumers are tech savvy

Ignorance of a threat does not relieve you of responsibility though.
IF the breach was on ArenaNets side, we would know. Partly because thousands upon thousands of accounts would be taken, and party due to ArenaNet most likely forcing people to change their passwords in order to protect the accounts.

Brother Grimm.5176:

rohan king of gods.4238:

I am giving suggestions on how to improve security and fair enough, what if the user does not know there is a breach on there end what then? Not all consumers are tech savvy

Still not sure how this leads to Anet being responsible for an account being compromised from another location. Your suggestion IS in place…it’s called mobile authentication. The flaw in that system is that hacking the users email account bypasses most security because Anet will consider all requests coming from the associated email account as verification of the account owner (and they are not wrong to do so).

My suggestion would almost 100% plug that hole (a compromised email hacker without intimate knowledge of the account and/or the account owners financial information (CC #) would not be able to make an account changing request go thru).

Gw 2 mobile authentication does not work on my phone model sir I am running a galaxy note 1 right now. I left a voice message on anet telephone answering machine on the very subject. I can ask if one of consomers don’t even have a cell phone?