So a couple days ago my account was hacked. Some thief stole around ~200 gold worth of stuff from my toons and pretty much had me questioning why continue to play this game if it’s that easy for someone to steal my account and my time.
Still, I thought that Arena Net would be able to restore my account and while I might lose a day or two of progress….perhaps even a week if I was unlucky…. that things would still work out.
Turns out that Arena Net has failed us all, however. The best they are current able to support, at least in my case, was a back up that would cause me to lose more than 2 MONTHS of progress, gold, items, etc which is almost as bad – and in some ways worse – than what the thief did.
Competing products like WoW can roll you back to within a last login/logout and the best that Arena Net can offer is to lose literally moths of progress? Am I crazy or does that seem completely unacceptable?
The only unacceptable thing here really is the fact that you would blame ArenaNet for your own faults.
Ok, that comment is just plain stupid. Whether or not I took all the right precautions (I can assure you I did, I’m still baffled by how it occurred), a corporation has a responsibility to their customers to provide a reasonable level of support to their customers and one that is comparable to the level of service their competitors provide if they want to stay in business long term. This sort of thing can happen to the most educated and prepared person and just because it didn’t happen to you yet doesn’t mean it won’t.
For the sake of argument, if it did manage to happen to you and you had the choice of losing hundreds of golds or to restore to an image several months in the past which would also result in losing hundreds of gold I’m sure you wouldn’t be sitting there saying, “well, it’s my own fault” after all.
I have played online games for over 15 years. I have yet to have a single one of my accounts “hacked” so clearly it is very possible to avoid being “hacked”.
The thing is, all these “hackings” are not hackings at all. They are either using a weak password, using the same password everywhere, having a keylogger, sharing account details or simply getting tricked into pressing a harmful link in an email (which is btw warned about on this very forum)
I have played online games for over 15 years. I have yet to have a single one of my accounts “hacked” so clearly it is very possible to avoid being “hacked”.
This is a logical fallacy (and bad argument).
You can improve your chances by taking certain safetly measures, but just because it hasn’t happened to you specifically doesn’t mean that you’re safe from it or that it was a bigger achievement on your part. Maybe you were also just lucky, most people are.
I have played online games for over 15 years. I have yet to have a single one of my accounts “hacked” so clearly it is very possible to avoid being “hacked”.
The thing is, all these “hackings” are not hackings at all. They are either using a weak password, using the same password everywhere, having a keylogger, sharing account details or simply getting tricked into pressing a harmful link in an email (which is btw warned about on this very forum)
There are also plenty of other people who have never been hacked up until playing GW2. Fun fact is, hackers have gotten better at their game.
You can improve your chances by taking certain safetly measures, but just because it hasn’t happened to you specifically doesn’t mean that you’re safe from it or that it was a bigger achievement on your part. Maybe you were also just lucky, most people are.
I am not saying it can’t (or won’t) happen to me, I am simply stating that it is quite clearly the users fault should the be “hacked”.
Had it been a real hack LOADS of people would have been effected, since that would have meant they had gotten access to the Guild Wars 2 servers. Since that is quite clearly not the case, the problem lies with the users, not the games security.
I have played online games for over 15 years. I have yet to have a single one of my accounts “hacked” so clearly it is very possible to avoid being “hacked”.
The thing is, all these “hackings” are not hackings at all. They are either using a weak password, using the same password everywhere, having a keylogger, sharing account details or simply getting tricked into pressing a harmful link in an email (which is btw warned about on this very forum)
Have to disagree here. The guy is a victim, nobody deserves to be a victim. Even if you leave your keys in your car you don’t deserve to have it stolen, although it is an easier target. Cars and accounts don’t steal themselves. Don’t get so desensitized to the act that you don’t see the crime in it.
It is sort of an industry practice to be able to recover accounts and items, the likelihood is high in MMOs for that to be needed. It perplexes a lot of us that it’s not built in to their design. I’m sure ArenaNet is aware of the need for it as well (we all hope).
Anyways, usual ways people get into your account is with you downloading modifications, signing up to 3rd party gaming websites, a 3rd party website or gaming company who got their database stolen, which is why you don’t use the same password everywhere, commonly used passwords don’t work on GW2 anymore due to them being blocked so that’s not it, or they stole your email and use whatever information there to try and obtain your account. Fun fact is, hackers are not soothsayers. They have to get the details somewhere. Why do they bother doing this? Cause they can turn those items into real money. It’s a business to them. Funny enough it’s sometimes the people who got hacked who come crawling to the RMT peeps to buy gold back to get what they lost.
To be clear here, I write software for a living so I’m very cognizant of how to be secure and what to look for. I had a very strong mixed case alphanumeric password. It wasn’t a word or name, it was random numbers and letters. I know better than to fall for phishing scams and I have a firewall and anti-virus software installed on my computer. Even with all that, it still happened and it could happen to anyone. Just because it hasn’t doesn’t mean that it won’t.
Since this is apparently a common threat to MMO gamers and Arena Net knows this, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect them to take some precautions against this and account for this happening. In this regard, they completely failed since I would literally lose almost as much gold/mats/etc ON TOP OF the XP, AP, Map completions that I had achieved by rolling back. This seems like a huge oversight and speaking as a programmer, a relatively easy thing to fix.
Capture the person’s state each time they log out, retain the last 2 or 3 states at most and then roll back to that state when needed. I’m sure there are some considerations I’m unaware of but the basic premise is pretty simple and would have made a bad situation for me and many others not quite so terrible.
Actually harbinger, these days the people who get hacked actually have really good passwords like yours. We’ve been brought up to use strong passwords. Hackers know this. Also a firewall and anti-virus program won’t stop anything when people use mods for a game. The person will actually allow the keylogger if it means using what they want. Hackers also put spyware into mirror downloads for things normally clean and legal to use. You can obviously tell when it’s a person who posts on a website saying they found this great program and are sharing it with a download link that they provided. Others go to bigger lengths to lure you in. But yeah, the bottom line is, hackers do it for money.
As far as I know I’ve never had an account compromised due to weak passwords, but I also use a long and complex password for each site, AND the email and password I use for each site differ. As for people who get hacked, studies have shown that the most common passwords are those that are easy to guess, such as “123456”. See http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57539366/the-25-most-common-passwords-of-2012/
It doesn’t matter how much security you have running on your pc. If you’re going to use passwords that are easy to guess, or if you’re going to keep reusing your passwords, that’s your wrongdoing, and you’re more likely to lose access to your accounts. If you fall into that category, don’t blame other people for your choices.
I have not been hacked in GW2, but many years ago I did get both my GW1 and WoW accounts stolen at the same time. I now know how they did it…both had the same login. Even though the password was complex and my system was secure, the criminal didn’t need to hack the login or my system—just had to get the login from any of the web sites I probably used it on as well.
Today we’ve all learned to use unique logins to every system. I use a generator for all my passwords so none are remotely related to each other or anything else.
You might consider contacting support, again, and asking them if they are sure they do not have a restore point closer than 2 months ago. Of all the posts on the forums about restoration, no one has ever expressed having such a distant restore point. Perhaps, someone made a mistake in looking at the ‘snapshots’, and this can be resolved more to your satisfaction. It does sound rather unusual. Good luck.
I agree with Inculpatus cedo, it does sound strange, and if it is the case that they have to go back that far, then I also agree with the op, that is unacceptable.
As for blaming the op, please go away. It is getting tiring seeing posts like that time and time again. Every time an account is compromised, some one will almost always say “scan your computer, it’s your fault for using an insecure password”, etc.
The first point, “scan your computer”. The op will scan their computer and find nothing. This means either there was nothing there so that was not how it happened, or the keylogger or whatever is still there. If the computer was still infected, their accou8nt would go down again as soon as they recovered it. That pretty much rules out the Trojans/keyloggers for most of these. Blaming the op for using an insecure password? Please! I work in the computer security field. I am the person who sets the password security that others have to follow. My passwords are always unique, never reused, and always complex. My account was compromised within a couple of days of launch. They had my password and login. The only computer used for the game was a brand new dedicated gaming machine. Luckily for me I had the email verification enabled so it was not a real issue, but they did somehow get both my login and password. I work with companies tracking down and reporting phishing sites/emails/scams/etc. I know for a fact they did not get my password from my computer or some site I Iogged in to with it, a phishing email, a bad link etc. They still where able to get it.
This seems highly unusual hopefully Gaile can shed some light on the subject.
While securing your account is your responsibility – there should be a better restore point you would think. Or there is something seriously wrong with the backup system that anet needs to address. If its the latter you might be SOL but thems the ropes.
I’ve asked the support guys to take another look, make absolutely sure that there’s not a more reasonable restore point but I’m not holding my breath. If I’m the anomaly and most people can be restored to within 3-7 days of their account being compromised then I’d say it sucks to be me but at least the system will account for most people appropriately.
However, if this is more the norm rather than the exception then I think ANet needs to take some pretty aggressive steps to address what is clearly a major deficiency in their account recovery strategy….one right now that is costing me and possibly many others a bunch.
Every time (except for this one) I’ve read about someone getting a rollback due to account compromise, the player always seemed happy with the time at which the account was rolled back. I’ve seen days mentioned as the time frame but never months.
Every time (except for this one) I’ve read about someone getting a rollback due to account compromise, the player always seemed happy with the time at which the account was rolled back. I’ve seen days mentioned as the time frame but never months.
Well, if they take another look and can roll me back to within days of my account being hacked I’d call that acceptable service and be pleased with that result despite losing a few days of progress. Like I said though, I’m having them double check but the latest word is 2/19 is the latest date they can roll me back to.
So a couple days ago my account was hacked. Some thief stole around ~200 gold worth of stuff from my toons and pretty much had me questioning why continue to play this game if it’s that easy for someone to steal my account and my time.
Still, I thought that Arena Net would be able to restore my account and while I might lose a day or two of progress….perhaps even a week if I was unlucky…. that things would still work out.
Turns out that Arena Net has failed us all, however. The best they are current able to support, at least in my case, was a back up that would cause me to lose more than 2 MONTHS of progress, gold, items, etc which is almost as bad – and in some ways worse – than what the thief did.
Competing products like WoW can roll you back to within a last login/logout and the best that Arena Net can offer is to lose literally moths of progress? Am I crazy or does that seem completely unacceptable?
Could I get that ticket number? It would be extremely unusual for us to say, in response to a days’ old hack, that we need to pull a restoration from two months ago. I mean, I’ve never heard of such a thing! Ticket number, please.
Every time (except for this one) I’ve read about someone getting a rollback due to account compromise, the player always seemed happy with the time at which the account was rolled back. I’ve seen days mentioned as the time frame but never months.
Exactly! Thank you — that IS the norm. A few days is common. Sometimes even a day. But not months unless something really odd has happened with an individual account!
Update: An agent just checked and it appears you can be restored to within 2 days of the hacking. Update your ticket if you need to, so that an agent can assist you.
And please give me the ticket number so I can troubleshoot any communication issue.
Update: An agent just checked and it appears you can be restored to within 2 days of the hacking. Update your ticket if you need to, so that an agent can assist you.
And please give me the ticket number so I can troubleshoot any communication issue.
That would be wonderful if you could roll me back to within a couple days within the hack which occurred 4.22.13. I know the support ticket suggests my account was compromised before that, but as of 4/21/13 I hadn’t lost anything and would love to be rolled back to that date.
My ticket number is: 130422-002265
If you can restore me, please let me know, but I do have a question about gem purchases I’ve made After the hack to try and get my account back up and in order.
I updated the ticket (130422-002265) with your comments and requested to be restored if it was within a couple days or so of the hack (4/22/13). If there’s anything else I need to do, please let me know how to move forward and thank you very much for your assistance in correcting this issue.
Another update. The Support Desk people are still telling me the same thing, Feb 19th as of an hour ago. Not sure where the disconnect is but I thought I’d give you a heads up Gaile. Thanks again for the assistance.
Yah, sounds like a major disconnect somewhere. Especially since Ms. Gray has already said it was 2 days. Maybe it got put in the notes as 2 months (maybe a typo, 2 days was meant) and now whoever is checking on it, is just reading the 2 months and not looking further. Hopefully you get this resolved soon.
That would be wonderful if you could roll me back to within a couple days within the hack which occurred 4.22.13. I know the support ticket suggests my account was compromised before that, but as of 4/21/13 I hadn’t lost anything and would love to be rolled back to that date.
So basically, Anet Support will roll back the account to when the initial account compromise took place, which would most likely explain the 2 month time frame. If that’s the case, I doubt they’ll allow him to pick and choose which point to restore the account to.
That would be wonderful if you could roll me back to within a couple days within the hack which occurred 4.22.13. I know the support ticket suggests my account was compromised before that, but as of 4/21/13 I hadn’t lost anything and would love to be rolled back to that date.
So basically, Anet Support will roll back the account to when the initial account compromise took place, which would most likely explain the 2 month time frame. If that’s the case, I doubt they’ll allow him to pick and choose which point to restore the account to.
You may have something there. Ms. Gray said it could be restored to 2 days before the hacking.
Update: An agent just checked and it appears you can be restored to within 2 days of the hacking. Update your ticket if you need to, so that an agent can assist you.
And please give me the ticket number so I can troubleshoot any communication issue.
If so, that means his account was hacked back in the middle of February, which is why they are saying 2/19/13. If this is why then it appears he has the option to either take the rollback or keep it the way it is now. They don’t allow you to pick your roll back date. It’s either at the time of the hack or not at all.
That would be wonderful if you could roll me back to within a couple days within the hack which occurred 4.22.13. I know the support ticket suggests my account was compromised before that, but as of 4/21/13 I hadn’t lost anything and would love to be rolled back to that date.
So basically, Anet Support will roll back the account to when the initial account compromise took place, which would most likely explain the 2 month time frame. If that’s the case, I doubt they’ll allow him to pick and choose which point to restore the account to.
You may have something there. Ms. Gray said it could be restored to 2 days before the hacking.
Update: An agent just checked and it appears you can be restored to within 2 days of the hacking. Update your ticket if you need to, so that an agent can assist you.
And please give me the ticket number so I can troubleshoot any communication issue.
If so, that means his account was hacked back in the middle of February, which is why they are saying 2/19/13. If this is why then it appears he has the option to either take the rollback or keep it the way it is now. They don’t allow you to pick your roll back date. It’s either at the time of the hack or not at all.
To add to this, allowing an account to be restored to a later date, after an initial compromise, would be like letting the account holder keep all the hacker’s gains up to that point.
To be clear here, the support people said my account first showed signs of being compromised in early march. This is not something they told me until well into this back and forth process, btw. However, I hadn’t played very long at that point and I’m guessing I hadn’t accumulated enough wealth for them to bother with me. (Dunno, just my theory based on what they’ve told me). There were no signs or any indication from my end that someone had access to my account so from my perspective, it wasn’t until 4/22 when they took over the account and stole everything I had that my account had been compromised.
Now that I’ve gotten a new password, applied the mobile authenticator, ensured my computer’s virus/bot free I’m just looking to get rolled back to as close to the actual theft as possible.
Feb 19th is a completely pointless and hugely destructive date for me to roll back to as I had only played a month and a half at that point and I’d be down from 3800 achievement points, 99% map complete and level 30 personal frac reward level with 3 80’s and other toons to maybe 2 toons, 1 of which is 80 and having never run fracs at all. That would represent a far worse scenario than just losing hundreds of gold from the theft and moving on.
I’m not trying to “choose” a date to rollback to, I’m simply reporting that a theft occurred on 4/22/2013 and I’d like to be rolled back to as close to that date as possible.
To add to this, allowing an account to be restored to a later date, after an initial compromise, would be like letting the account holder keep all the hacker’s gains up to that point.
I have no idea what this means….the hackers didn’t take my character and run around farming all day when I wasn’t on leaving me all sorts of goodies to enjoy when I got back on……they stole everything I had worked for for months one time (4.22.13) and that was it. I was left with nothing. In no scenario would there be a potential for “gains” for me here……I either rollback to 2/19 and lose almost the entire game’s progress for me on top of all the gold/mats or they do right be me and I roll back to ~4/20 and I lose all this week’s progress (4 arah runs, several frac runs, countless COF, dailies, etc).
No matter what happens here, I will lose something. There is no potential for me to “gain” anything.
I don’t know. IF you were hacked in Feb/Mar, how can Support know you aren’t the hacker wanting assistance, or wanting to have any even more control over the account. It seems odd that your account was hacked in February or March, and you were not aware someone else had control of it. Either the compromise didn’t happen until late April, or something very odd is going on here. I am sorry, but you may have to just choose between losing the gold, or losing the progress.
I don’t know. IF you were hacked in Feb/Mar, how can Support know you aren’t the hacker wanting assistance, or wanting to have any even more control over the account. It seems odd that your account was hacked in February or March, and you were not aware someone else had control of it. Either the compromise didn’t happen until late April, or something very odd is going on here. I am sorry, but you may have to just choose between losing the gold, or losing the progress.
Well, unless the hackers also control the email address which I registered the game – which they don’t – or can provide the credit card number which I purchased the game with – which I can, they can’t – then I’d say it’s spectacularly easy for me to prove who I am and that I’m not the hacker. Aside from the fact that I can’t imagine a hacker drawing this much attention to an account that he’s compromised. I mean, what sense would that make?
Ok..so you have been hacked twice, and got control back from the first hack without any support assistance. I guess that is where the problem is, and you need to prove that to support so they will change your restore point date.
I was just saying it seems an odd case where they see you have been hacked two months ago, and now hacked again. Maybe they are thinking the first hacker got some information from data stored in your emails or on your computer. I am just trying to understand what is going on with your account, because as I said before, the circumstances are very unusual.
Ok..so you have been hacked twice, and got control back from the first hack without any support assistance. I guess that is where the problem is, and you need to prove that to support so they will change your restore point date.
I was just saying it seems an odd case where they see you have been hacked two months ago, and now hacked again. Maybe they are thinking the first hacker got some information from data stored in your emails or on your computer. I am just trying to understand what is going on with your account, because as I said before, the circumstances are very unusual.
To the best of my knowledge the timeline is this:
1. In early March the first sign that my account had been compromised appears (at least according to ANet’s logs, I had no clue) – BUT nothing was stolen nor did they do anything to my account that I noticed……and I would have noticed given how much I play..
2. There may have been logins from the oversea’s IP to my account many times (or not at all, support hasn’t said) before 4/22/13…this is up in the air for me
3. The oversea’s IP address finally changes my password, takes over the account, steals everything I own late 4/22 or early 4/23.
4. I attempt to log in on 4/23, realize I can’t and put a support ticket in
5. Support sends me a link to the email address I registered the game with which allows me to reset my password
6. I have now locked the account down, linked a mobile auth., ensured I have no viruses, etc. etc. but have still lost everything they stole.
While technically I was hacked once or more starting in early March leading up to 4/22, there was no malicious activity to my account before 4/22. My point here is that I shouldn’t be punished because a thief compromised my account before I had anything worth stealing. I wished he would have compromised my account in early march, stolen what little I had and then I could have rolled back to late Feb. and all is well. Unfortunately for me, the thief waited as I made tons of progress in the game on several toons and now the amount of progress constitutes a bigger loss than the gold itself would have.
The thing most likely is that they have a policy to always roll back the account to the point before the first unauthorized access, just in order to sto kitten ues where users gain stuff because of the hacker.
The thing most likely is that they have a policy to always roll back the account to the point before the first unauthorized access, just in order to sto kitten ues where users gain stuff because of the hacker.
I can assure you, I’m only going to lose no matter what decision they make at this point, it’s just a matter of how much at this point. I’m not sure how I could possibly “gain” stuff because I was hacked….guess I just don’t know that even means or don’t think that way.
Either I’ll lose this weeks progress which represents a fair amount of arah/cof tokens as well as everything else I’ve earned or I’ll lose everything the thief stole……there’s no outcome in which this benefits me that I can see here.
It’s just curious where the date 2/19 came from. It suggests that they are seeing your account was hacked then. If their records show that, getting a more current date to reset to may be impossible. If their logs are showing early March, then that date is really strange. There is a disconnect in the story somewhere. Dealing with support and getting info from them can be like pulling teeth. (I know because I’ve dealt with them before). Maybe Ms. Gray will be able to tell you why they are saying that date.
Good job ANet I’m glad you fixed this. I would’ve also hated to lose 2 months of progression especially since it’s been less then that that I got Bifrost.
Good job ANet I’m glad you fixed this. I would’ve also hated to lose 2 months of progression especially since it’s been less then that that I got Bifrost.
I think you must have read something wrong or perhaps not read the entire thread. They haven’t fixed anything and every day I have to wait to hear what their research will turn up is another day of progress and accumulation of tokens/gold that I’ll have to lose if I do get to restore to sometime right before 4/22. While I appreciate Gaile’s initial attempts to help, there hasn’t been any progress made that I’m aware of,.
And yeah, losing 2 full months of Laurels, XP, AP, etc, etc. really would suck. Worse, in fact, then losing the gold/mats that they thief stole.
On Anet’s end, their concern is 1) finding the point in time when your account was compromised and 2) getting your account rolled back to as close to that date as possible. The fact that you didn’t know about the compromise until this week doesn’t change the fact that it happened month(s) ago.
Hackers got access to your account, but didn’t do anything to it initially. This happens. Some accounts are taken over immediately to sell Gold or bot-farm, while others are held in reserve for future use. So while you went on your merry way playing, someone knew your login and pw combo, and waited to take over when they needed to. It could be possible that they were, in fact, playing your account when you weren’t online.
It does suck that you’ll have to lose progress and items. But on the flip side, at least you still have your account.
It does suck that you’ll have to lose progress and items. But on the flip side, at least you still have your account.
That’s the worst part for me. Given the choices I have right now,. I"ll lose items/mats/gold either way. Feb 19. represents a huge step back in the game and not only would I lose about the same amount of gold/items/etc that the thief stole, but the bulk of my progress over the last 2+ months which is var more valuable.
And for the record, ANet appears to be just letting this issue quietly die….no one’s contacted me or done anything since Gaile’s post last week……if they are not going to make things right, they could at least they could come back and tell me that “Sorry, sucks to be you” but I haven’t even gotten that.
It does suck that you’ll have to lose progress and items. But on the flip side, at least you still have your account.
That’s the worst part for me. Given the choices I have right now,. I"ll lose items/mats/gold either way. Feb 19. represents a huge step back in the game and not only would I lose about the same amount of gold/items/etc that the thief stole, but the bulk of my progress over the last 2+ months which is var more valuable.
And for the record, ANet appears to be just letting this issue quietly die….no one’s contacted me or done anything since Gaile’s post last week……if they are not going to make things right, they could at least they could come back and tell me that “Sorry, sucks to be you” but I haven’t even gotten that.
I think that Gaile just ‘forgot’ and that the agent made a mistake. Normally I’m against this, but given her promise to help you and the fact nobody has contacted you yet, means I think you want to sent Gaile a pm here o nthe forum with a link to her post as a friendly reminder.
Just to say fully. Gaile should never be pm-ed with account issues. Ever
Except for this specifick situation (and Gaile if you disagree with me just slap my fingers with a ruler )
Arise, ye farmers of all nations
Arise, opressed of Tyria!
Please do not PM me about issues. I am currently on vacation in Europe, but before I left I was told this WAS a two-day restoration, not at all the two months cited. Please UPDATE your ticket to ask about this, and ask that they pull game logs to review the restoration point offered. If we can establish that you were compromised, we should be able to help you.
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