Guild Wars 2

Well, i first got my account hacked at the beginning of September, for no obvious reasons. The hacker sold and stole every little thing i had and left me naked. I got my account back in about 5 days, from scratch, and i started building it up again.

Now i got kicked from the game with a notice that someone else logged on my account, and guess what? Pew pew, email address changed, you dear sir are kitten.e.d.

I was 2 gold and a Temple of Balthazar clear away from getting my Sunrise. (2 gold in cash, the mats i had were worth quite a god kitten lot)

So do tell me, how is this possible? HOW THE HELL can they hack my account again when i changed my e-mail address password like a week ago or so, and my GW2 Acc password 2 days ago after someone just complained about being hacked?

If they managed to hack my account again, does that mean they have access to your database? Which implies they have access to my/our personal information? From who we are to where we live and even our money? I mean come on…YOU HAVE to improve your god kitty kitten security already.

I’m guessing even if i get my account back in a few days again, i’ll be left yet again stripped naked without a dime and with no more legendary, right? I played about 900 hours to reach this point since release. Think about it before saying: Yeah, sure, just start from scratch again

In the same boat mate. I had everything for sunrise and just needed the event not to bug.

The hacker deleted my chars and cant be recovered.

Hopefully anet will take note if people keep logging the issues.

Good luck

They had 11 000 or something like that accounts hacked after release.

Now the hacks started again, aiming for people that actually are worth something…

I sincerely am selfish enough to say, i WANT to see my good restored, not just future safety…

I mean come on, 900 hours wasted on this to be thrown away and start from scratch? This is inhumane! And they can not say they have no logs to check and see 1—> What you have (had) and 2—> What happened

900 hours? not possible.. Stop that..

Also stop using passwords like 1234 Karpuz..

Regardless what his password was, Anet doesn’t have a verification system in place for changing your email.

Just this:
“Someone -hopefully you!- has requested to change the email address associated with your Guild Wars account.
Need help or have questions about your Guild Wars account? Visit our support site: http://support.guildwars2.com/.
Thanks!
-The ArenaNet Team”
I received this about 5 hours ago. I can now log into my account but my gold is gone, my items are gone and I’m on a German server and can’t understand anything in /m chat. They didn’t even move me back.

They suggested the I look for “Renown Hearts” and try and buy stuff with my karma to make up for all the mats and gold I’m missing. I can look on the transaction listing for stuff sold on the Trading Post and SEE ALL MY STUFF RIGHT NOW! And now they won’t even answer me.

I don’t think I’m going to start over. It’s still within the time frame to get a refund on my game, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Anet, get your kitten together, you’re not a bunch of college kids trying to function in the haze of a hangover, you’re a professional game company will millions of customers. Act accordingly.

Well, that’s up to me Lysico. In a month or so i’ll have to cut down a lot on my gametime so i wanted to play A LOT now.

Also, i was using a password like e***************8. So yes, that’s not karpuz1234 or some kitten.

But i agree with Sacha. There are SO MANY easy ways to prevent this kind of theft…

ArenaNet said they had the authorization thingy for an email change back in GW1 and people complained. Well in all honesty i couldn’t care less if people complained as long as that lowers the risks of account hack by half.

Also Sacha i wasn’t lucky enough. I couldn’t log back in to even see the damage, though from the experience on my first hack, if they stole every little bit then, right now at this worth, they prob even deleted my chars for all i know. Fuucking chinese botts.

Also, i think you guys are understaffed…I sent a mail to support in the first 5 minutes after the hack (when the guy was online since my guildies kept trying to reach him while he was doing his thing), and he was online for 5-10 more minutes after i sent the email. If you had someone to look just into account security breaches 24/7 (god knows i’d even pay for that) that would have 1—> given you the hacker since you’d have caught him redhanded 2—> ease my suffering and maybe even damage…

So many things you could do…Not asking for the world here…

So now I have to also fear getting randomly hacked, regardless of what methods I use to prevent this?

Basically, yes. I don’t even want to start over. Why bother? Anet is trying very very hard to make this sound like a personal security issue but I don’t have a keylogger and my email hasn’t been compromised, so how was I hacked? How is this my fault and why can’t they restore items? Even some of them? I know they have these transactions logged. Hell, I can see them!

This is TERRIBLE customer service. I don’t have the heart to rebuild. Not when this is the only recourse they have for something that is clearly not my fault.

Well, kitten, even if this would be my fault, sorry for the trouble, but you’re the ones that are in charge with my security more or less. If you or I had a breach, they would be like the bodyguards, clearing up the intruders and restoring the goods.

And Loli Ruri, yes, you can always fear that. But a few tips imo…Don’t brag…Don’t tell what you have…I had a few people knew that i was 2 gold away from my legendary, ergo all the stuff i had + precursor were worth quite a lot.

I’ve also made a thread regarding the temple of balthazar buggs, which allowed any “interested customer” to see my sittuation and take me as a target…

So basically, unless you keep a low profile or aim for little things that don’t draw attention: Like no money, no shiny armor, no legendary, who knows…you might be safer

Well, I’d like Ms. Gray to expound on this post she made in a different topic.

“Once again: We will be rolling out the Account Restoration Service in the near future, after which accounts involved in qualifying compromise incidents will be eligible for a “roll-back” to their previous state.
Gaile Gray
Support Liaison
ArenaNet”

What exactly are qualifying compromise incidents and who will be eligible and what is the ETA on this roll out? The topic this was posted in is now locked. Otherwise I would have posted there.

I sent a PM to Gaile yesterday and no answer about that…
So I’ll ask here: will you rollback my account when restoration service will be up?
No ‘maybe’, ‘who knows’, I want a ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
And yeah, you guys said two months ago you’re planning to implement this BASIC service and it’s still not here. Do you honestly think we can wait for MONTHS before getting everything back?

So my account was hacked yesterday. I have no issues with security breeches on my computer and no one knows my account information. Am I to understand all my items/gems are lost and I will not be able to recover them? If so this is poor game management. They should be able to look at the logs, see who got emailed all my gold and ban the lovely(sarcasm) people that did this. Also the only way they could get my information is from someone accessing their database. Could someone from Anet give me an answer? I would appreciate it. I am only one player out of many, I play with my wife and enjoy the game but now how can I be sure that anything of mine is safe in the game?

Have no fear bro, they don’t seem to bother replying. They can’t seem to accept a possible security breach. N’or actually do anything about it

Would just like to know Are you from RoS ?

Unfortunately they wont be able to recover you items.

My characters got deleted and cant be recovered.

Keep posting though – hopefully we will get the issue escalated.

Elnor, its tank.. sorry to hear about your account mate.

Well CC Eva closed the thread started by likens stated: “They won´t probably restore what you lost while hacking though.”

Which is a nicer way of saying: Go kitten yourself, and yes, i typed kitten as kitty though i do miss a good curse word.

If only they could atleast bother themselves to return access to the owners of the account, if they can’t care about what we worked for and how their system failure feels like

I submitted a ticket, i have the mobile authenticator which doesn’t seem to make a difference. They won’t even restore the gems I have purchased? If that is the case, this is ridiculous. I was about to purchase more gems, that is unlikely now. As regards to just a few people posting about security breeches on heavily guarded accounts. If there was a security breech they would only do a dozen at a time if they were smart to avoid the type of suspicion your referring to so you argument doesn’t really hold up. Are these even being investigated to find out where their sending the items/money to and banning those accounts? If not your doing your subscribers a huge dis-service.

Have you checked your computer for trojans/keyloggers? Changing your email pw from your own computer will not help you if it’s infected and the hacker that got you the first time can see every password you type.
(Of course, if you have the mobile authenticator activated, please ignore what I said).

@Maetel: Gaile has said several times that the launch of the restoration service will mark the earliest point that they can go back to. So if you’ve already been hacked, that service will not be able to do anything for you. So that’s a no.

I ran scans about 3 times in the last week, and nothing came up.

Also i do not use a mobile authenticator sadly. I might change that if i get my account back and decide to start from scratch again..

Also, why would the launch of the restoration service mark the earliest point that they can go back to? I mean they have the kitten logs, it would be such an easy task to just go back a bit further for those that lost their entire game, and not just for those that will have that problem in the future..

I have no detailed technical knowledge of what ArenaNet is building, but usually a restore like this is based on snapshots being made regularly, not in any way on replaying logs. Since they’re not making snapshots of individual accounts yet, they have none to go back to.

Technically speaking, replaying logs that touch more than only the table/object to be rolled back would be a pain. For example: would all those items the hacker sold on the TP disappear from the (usually innocent) buyers’ inventories? What if they used those items? Would someone suddenly end up with -50 ectos in their inventory?
This is not something you can “just do”, certainly not without turning every ticket into 5 new ones.

I looked up the original post for you:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Anet-still-don-t-have-a-char-recovery-system

Check out Gaile’s replay at the bottom.

Well, those that bought my 400 ecots and whatnot can keep their items. They paid for them, so it’s only normal to keep them.

BUT, they can just add the items that went missing from my inventory without removing them from those that bought them. And it’s not supposed to be as hard as you make it sound…I mean WoW managed it easily, why couldn’t they?

So, you were also hacked while using the mobile authenticator? I can’t see how that’s possible unless there’s a loophole somewhere. Did you have your ip on the trusted ip list?

What server were you on likens?

There ARE some back ups on the accounts.
What if something were to happen on the server the database is saved on ? Even just 1 back up server is too little, you would need more backup servers.
Also there are other logs such as the one with the selling history on BLTP. Sure they can’t turn it back, but they could reduplicate items for the players. It’s not a big deal and it won’t impact the economy in anyway on such low scale, not all items can be recovered anyway.

And there should be a way to check up on the mails.
I know there isn’t one at the moment BUT.
The character will have sent mail to another person and that person should have received mails and there should be a backup for that. There has to be a way where they can Query the mails where the sender is the victim and has sent mail in the past 2-3 days or so. There might still be a chance where they haven’t deleted the mails yet.

Actually after the first time i got hacked i checked my mail and i had a mail recieved from a random guy that logged off and i’ve never seen again after i whispered him saying i’ll burn him and his family..

But yeah, Ilesyt is right…There should be so many ways to do this. Yet none is even taken into consideration

I’m not going to look it up right now, but I’ve seen statements that at this moment, ANet GMs/support personnel don’t actually have the ability to create items/gold on the spot, so even if they have the manpower to read through all the logs and identify each lost item/stack/character/etc, they can’t create replacements.

From how long it took to send out replacement DDE items for those that never got them, I’d guess a developer has to custom-build something for each such run.
(edit: They’re probably doing just that for the Ancient Karka compensation atm)

I agree that they left out some very basic features for supporting their customers.

Lol Karpuz, people on the forum don’t know me as Elnor :p

kchanged.

And yes Cyrus, i can understands what you’re saying, but still…It’s absurd to leave out so many basic and reliable things…For what? It only messes up their customers…Having those would really increase their strenght and trust…

Karpuz, I’m in no way defending ArenaNet’s choices in this regard. I think it’s shameful that they launched without basic account recovery and support mechanisms in place.

I’m posting here to relay the facts as I’ve seen them on the forum here to give you more information to help you deal with ANet support. It’s definitely not the news you wanted to hear, but at least you know it’s not the support grunt that’s not giving a kitten’s kitten, it’s simply that they can’t do much because ANet didn’t build the underlying mechanisms.

Usually when something like that happens, it was pressure from the publisher to ship the game and only work on the areas that will give positive reviews at launch.

Oh yes Cyrus, i know, i’m not blaming you for anything n’or insinuating such a thing.

Just that…You know…Since i cba smashing my laptop out of rage since i won’t even get a response regarding my account recovery, i atleast can QQ on the Forums and point out the obvious flaws

QQ’ing is all you have left after being hacked lol.

Oh and people like me who like to QQ together with the victims :p

See my post. Provide as much information as you can there. The Mod as requested it

Cyrus.8261:

Karpuz, I’m in no way defending ArenaNet’s choices in this regard. I think it’s shameful that they launched without basic account recovery and support mechanisms in place.

I’m posting here to relay the facts as I’ve seen them on the forum here to give you more information to help you deal with ANet support. It’s definitely not the news you wanted to hear, but at least you know it’s not the support grunt that’s not giving a kitten’s kitten, it’s simply that they can’t do much because ANet didn’t build the underlying mechanisms.

You’re kitten right it’s shameful, and they certainly don’t give a rat’s kitten about the wasted hours and effort. I’m one of those STILL waiting for the Karka Event items to maybe get to my account. A small reprieve that they didn’t arrive BEFORE I was hacked.

I was the biggest defender of Anet. My boyfriend would get so upset at their lousy system bugs, character flaws, and the way they addressed them in the forums. But, there I was, cheering them on anyway, saying things like “it’s a new game, let them work on it.” Welp… that’s over. Anet, you have lost the loyalty of your customers for your failure.

And I also do not have a keylogger, my email was not compromised, and I use very strong passwords. So, please don’t tell me this was a “personal security breech”.

Another one of our commanders is being hacked at this SAME moment!

The hacker is still logged in, the name is Freyn, you can catch him if you hurry!

To be Quite Frank, If ANET do not Refund all these cases and there items there are basically a joke of staff members the problem is at there end someone has entered there “Untouchable Databases” and got valued accounts and took everything.

This is not the consumers / Account owners Problem This is the Staff/Security of accounts and databases PROBLEM as they have been breached.
If These accounts are’nt refunded Many will quit the game and there will be some serious bad Reviews about the game and the staff which to be honest is Fair as you as Staff members are refusing to refund items gear etc from which has been your own fault

Angry Customer / Rant Over.

ANET Staff Please Feel free to remove this post but all it does is prove you have something to hide all it means if you remove this it means i have more evidence of printscreens and what ever else to make a bigger case.

Honestly I can get new weapons, spend hundreds of hour recollecting the collectibles i had saved. Earn money so I can afford repairs/waypoints. What upsets me the most is the gems I lost that I paid for. Why those can’t be refunded is poor customer relations. Anyways I will wait to see what support says about my ticket. Thank you for reading and caring:)

I am not sure about purchased gems. When I remember it correctly there was a person who bought gems and did not receive them, another person traded ingame gold into gems and did not get them. Whereas the second person was not refunded with the gems, the first one did receive the gems after contacting support.
So giving you your with real life money purchased gems should not be a problem.
The question is whether they would do it, because you already had them, unfortunately got hacked and lost them with the hack. Maybe they will say that you owned them before and they cannot give it to you twice. (Which doesn’t make sense.. but you know.. ^^)

I could try to search for this thread, but it is like a month ago where I’ve read this.

If there was a database breach you’d hear about account hackings in droves, not what we’re currently hearing about. I trust the security of ArenaNet’s system MUCH more than I trust the security practices of individual users. The vast majority of the time whenever an account in any service is taken over by someone else, it’s due to the security (or lack thereof) implemented by the owner of the account.

You can completely prevent yourself from getting hacked due to weak passwords, passwords used elsewhere, malware on your pc, etc. All of us can prevent such security breaches, but many of us don’t. We can’t control what ArenaNet does with their database, but we can control how effective our own login credentials are.

As for ArenaNet’s response time, it does take them a while as they have limited resources (same as every other company on the planet), and there are also people allowing their own accounts to be compromised, allowing others to cheat them in trades, etc. There is only so much the company can do. Patience is required.

In the meantime, come up with a password around 15+ characters in length, combination of upper-case and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. DO NOT use a password you have used elswewhere, and don’t make it similar to any you have used elsewhere, especially if you have used your GW2 email address elsewhere. Add email verification to your account. Don’t share your gw2 or email login credentials with anyone, doesn’t matter who it is.

Let me explain you one thing cause it seems lot of people are naive: if you want to steal you don’t want people notice so you can keep doing that in the future too.
If you start hacking too many accounts people will notice and company will try and fix, and also people would stop playing cause they’re feared and even refuse to buy gold (if they do that…).
And another basic thing about theft: if you were in front of two houses with same security, but one is empty and the other one is full of goodies, where would you go?

You can keep dreaming about perfect security at Anet or any other gaming company, but reality shows that nothing is really secure and Mike o’Brien explained that in his article about security.

anonymouse, you’re so far from the truth it hurts…

Mostly every person that was hacked had all the security measures taken + even mobile authenticator and whatnot. I can understand your doubts, seeing how it’s normal to first blame the minority instead of the majority (us vs arenanet).

But i’m afraid you’re wrong. We were not responsable for any of these, it was a planned hit on certain characters, the hackers even took time to talk back. It was related to ArenaNet’s system, not ours.

Anyhow, i’m sure if you’d get hacked with your “increased security” you’ll figure that out yourself.

P.S: Since i didn’t spend any $ on gems, yet had 2 precursors + 2g away from Legendary and a lot of kitten, thus i was worth quite something, knowing that i was hacked back in septemeber, my biggest fear each and every day was getting hacked again…Trust me, it didn’t relate to weak security.

Anonymous or w/e If there was a database breach THEY WOULDNT TELL US. unless a certain percentage of the game where hacked etc so what you have said is pretty much useless cow fodder. If you did not read as what karpuz put before His password was a Very UNIQUE and hard password in no way at all easy his email was not the same password either personally mate Your a TROLL trying to arouse an arguement like Dirty british politicians.

In Speculation with anonymouse comment hes is basically a person who has no idea how to read Good written english as everything he said was explained BEFORE he commented to only conclusion i can come on to , is that he has special needs.

I got hacked today (got my account back now), and they changed my email, i dont know how they got my password in the first place, it was unique to guild wars 2 and is not used anywhere else, it wasn’t easy to guess because i used a selfmade random password generator that generates passwords like this one “cdf5z8kuxeqf7wbxmt7xozhun” (of course not a password i use). It concerns me that they could change the email so easily, didnt even get a change request email, it was just changed, which pretty much makes the email authendicator useless.

Any one here whos paid for things on their credit card ie gems and items etc can you check to see if your buyer protection covers thing slike cyber fraud or not as i know most do and they will put a charge against Anet if this IS down to them. And moderators im glad your grouping all this together but were getting a bit tired of "submit a ticket " answer. We are customers and have paid for a product. This product is a service and as such we expect a service when it goes wrong. Some one other than a mod please come and address your customers before its too late. It’s started with 1 or 2 now its easy approaching 100 issues in less than a week .

Arena net failed in protecting their database since the hacker only have to choose his target (wealthy account only …) then collect needed information to loggin and left it empty.

I’ve been taken care of my account and password thus I also set uped a mobile authentificator for email so no one could have access . Even though the hacker managed to change the adress and took everything from my account.

I dont know how but I’m sure there s a lake of security from the staff.

TL;DR

Keyloggers don’t care if you have a unique and/or hard password.

On a side note, I’ve seen anonymouse’s posts all over the place. I see no troll in telling people to secure their belongings. It’s like getting mad at Mike O’Brien for giving tips on his Account Security blog post.

Now here’s my way of never getting hacked:

1) Don’t visit naughty websites. If you do, use a different computer.
2) Use passwords that can’t be guessed
3) Use passwords that aren’t common. See the following CBS News link – http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57539366/the-25-most-common-passwords-of-2012/
4) Always have good AV/Firewall programs installed
5) Created an e-mail account ONLY FOR GW2.
6) Pray the forums and blog sites you registered with don’t get corrupted or hacked, and your personal information stolen.

BSMO.4560:

Arena net failed in protecting their database since the hacker only have to choose his target (wealthy account only …) then collect needed information to loggin and left it empty.

I’ve been taken care of my account and password thus I also set uped a mobile authentificator for email so no one could have access . Even though the hacker managed to change the adress and took everything from my account.

I dont know how but I’m sure there s a lake of security from the staff.

Thankyou for your comment you have basically just proven what i have said mate i am very sorry to hear yet another one of the original starter gw2 characters has been hacked ANET will not comment on anything until they have sorted the breach on their databases and they have formally said that they will not restore anything …. the only thing i remember is in the terms and conditions Staff members were suppose to help and stop things like this?
i witnessed something shocking a friend of mine was been hacked for 30-1hour 30 minutes i posted on forums opened tickets and did everything i could the guy on my friends account just laughed at us. and guess what ANET did nothing .

*KEY
ANET = POLICE HACKERS=GYPSEYS
moral of this Key
is POLICE do nothing to GYPSEYS
They only give out CRIME NUMBERS (Links to support Tickets)
I hope you all can understand this.

Calm down Jake xD Trust me, i know it’s annoying to see the same response: “It’s your fault, ArenaNet is innocent” from each and every self righteous guy around, but it’s their oppinion and they are entitled to it (even if it’s wrong).

Also, if they are still not answering it’s either because they are working on this 24/7 (which i doubt) or they want to let it slide away, and eventually we’ll stop asking and just resume to playing normally, starting from scratch.

That’s a cheap move by the way. But the point is not to blame someone else and rip their lungs out, the point is to just solve this already and give a finishing touch to the whole deal so others won’t suffer like we did