hacking paranoia?

So, this morning someone whose name I didn't recognize pm'd me to say he'd been hacked and asked, of course, if I could lend him some money.

I said that I was tapped out because I'd just bought 3 Tormented items, as as polite way of saying 'no'. After a minute, I thought to tell him that I had bought for a guildie and I was waiting for him to pay me back, but the guy had logged off already by then, which I thought was strange. I added him to my friends list but he hasn't been back on since.

Now, the fact that I didn't recognize him may not mean much - I send a lot of time helping strangers thru missions, some of whom pm me out of the blue weeks or months later and it might take a cpl mins conversation to jog my memory.

But I had visited all 4 AB areas in Factions this morning, not to participate in the AB but just to collect the quest rewards, and I got to thinking that a lot of people who've said they were hacked thought that it had something to do with being in AB when it happened.

I think the speculation was that somehow the hackers were sniffing the data streams to get the player's IP info. Is something like this possible, say just from a in-game chat exchange?

There does seem to be a lot of acct hacking going on recently and maybe I'm just being paranoid.

I've never shared my acct info with anyone. After the last round of hacking reports, I even changed my e-mail associated with the forums here to one not associated with my GW accounts, though it wasn't displayed it in my profile in the first place.

I've logged off and on a couple of times, just to make sure I can get in and that no one's changed the p/w on me and all seems ok so far.

I thought about giving my Tormenteds to a friend for safekeeping but then I figured that I have so much other good stuff that what would saving those really matter if everything else got taken.

It's sad to think that we have to worry about this sort of thing. It's sad, too, that Anet doesn't get your stuff back to you when you do get hacked. If they have logs showing every transaction between players, you'd think they could take it out of Player B's inventory and put it back in Player A's, since whoever hacks into A's acct transfers all the stuff to B.

Can someone change your p/w while you're logged into the game? So I should just never log out, leave the game running all the time?

Am I just being paranoid?

You're being too paranoid. Just be smart, protect yourself and nothing will happen. People who get hacked brought it onto themselves either by stupidity or trusting wrong people.

A safe password and hard email will keep you safe most of the time:

http://www.passwordmeter.com/

O and stay away from programs you don't know are safe

Virus scans are pro

sounds like a condom commercial.

Same general idea isn't it? Protect yourself, don't indulge in unsafe practices and you too can be virus free

lol. And indeed if u are unsure get a virus scan...might save your...pc

Keep your firewall on at all times and run spybot once day.

I actually just got hacked a couple days ago, made a thread...but it closed
Idk what happened...first...i didnt recognize some ppl in my friends list...then it said, there has been a problem with your internet router...and im like -_-...this is sounding familiar(remember the thread a while back called "I caught a hacker " Well yea...then i tried 10-15 times with my pw trying to get into my account...no luck..so i just hit reset pw..got the email...got into my account..changed the pw to something else...I think the 2 ppl in my friends list that i didn't know were probably a friend of the hackers...so he can steal all of my stuff :S..so yea..luckily nothing was missing, did a full virus scan...nothing in my computer at all..so i have no idea how someone got into my account

-Flames

See? Virus scan/spybot = blood test/physical exam. K...stopping before this degenerates into places we DON'T want to go...

1234567890abcdef = very strong password imo

Yeah anyone who's smart should use this password.

Your just paranoied.

Just be safe. Don't give out account info. And change your pass regularly and your fine. Virus scans help to.

in this day and age you can never be tooo paranoid.....never trust anything!


that being said, well....nevermind.

Pretty simple, do not visit sites that include:

Porn, Illegal Downloads, Guild Wars based "hacks", or connections to gold buy/sell sites.

Do not click on banners or pop-ups

Don't share your account with a friend who is addicted to porn or downloading songs and programs illegaly. Or a friend that is gullible.

(They say don't share your account at all, but about 2% of players with good friends follow that one.)

(If you won't give up porn for GW, atleast don't explore new sites.)

If you can do these things along with the obvious, you should be completely safe.
-----
Oh yeah, if you visit a site and find that it's missing and replaced with a random search site... SCAN INSTANTLY.

And alot of viruses don't go away with the first attempt. Virus programers know about scanners and have learned to make dodgy trojans. If you can't get rid of it and can't look it up and delete it manually, format the computer.

No. In-game communication passes via the server, and even if they had your IP that'd do them absolutely no good.

What they need to hack you is your e-mail account name, and your password.

Using special e-mail accounts which you do not use anywhere else reduces the risk of them knowing your log-in name (your email), and using a strong password (ie a nine letter or longer password which is not a word or misspelling of any word which would ever show up in a dictionary, and make sure to use mixed case and some numerals) means that even if they do it does them no good.

When people get hacked they pretty much always get hacked because they've given out their email and password to someone, somehow. Most of the time they've probably given it out willingly, to someone they trusted, and some of the time they've run a trojan which contained a keylogger.

It is very rare that people get hacked by hackers testing passwords at random, and the few times it happens it's because they've been silly enough to use an easily guessable password (e.g their name) or a password which is a word which is found in dictionaries.

A note: leetspeek passwords are not safe. While "b4N4nA" may look safe enough, it's actually weak, because dictionary attacks try common misspellings of all the words, in this case Banana, in the dictionary.

Luxons hack. One time they couldn't be killed, and then everyone in the map's game froze up. Including the Luxons. And then after that they could be killed. My guild thinks ANet did something :P.

:P

Definitely strong paranoia. Also, even if your account is logged in, if someone else logs into the account, you're booted out. So, logging in over night won't do anything but increase your electricity bill.

...why do you people insist on making these threads STILL?

Because people like you insist on reading them STILL?

GG.

lol @ Proff.

My password is "pass"

Do you think I should change it? If you think I should, email me and let me know at: [email protected] (that is coincidentally the email I use for my anet account).

Really being paranoid, he was probably randomly pming everyone in the district.

o okay u iz so clever

Not really.

Your account logs off if you log onto it from another computer or something, I think thats how it works. If it does you better be quicker then the hacker to be able to change ur password lol.

But ya, theirs only like 2 porn sites that I go to and I am pretty sure their safe lol. jk

Thanks for all the responses, I feel somewhat reassured.

I follow safe computing guidelines rigorously:

> AV, auto updates, usually on a daily basis
> use both SpywareBlaster & Spybot Search & Destroy, update those weekly
> home network is behind a firewall router with stateful packet inspection
> email here is different than both my accounts, also not displayed in my profile
> never given out my login info

As I said, I thought it was strange that the person asking for $ immediately logged off after I told him I'd just bought 3 Tormenteds. I'd think someone begging like that would spend hours doing it; could just be he had been and I was last on his list.

Yes, Avatar of Elements, your post was fresh in my mind which may have helped trigger my paranoia. lol

well you never know, he might of died, quit, found another game, got a life, i don't know, but doubt he was trying to steal your account. if someone were to try, pretty sure they wouldn't want you to know their main/spare accounts either.

Not saying that hackign simply NEVER happens to a smart player, but yes you are being far too paranoid. Chill out and enjoy the game!

Babies = losing control of your life = losing control of your account!

It maybe this.

I am Paranoid