Poll: Account Security Solutions

They can eliminate that issue for characters at least:
Sell character locks, and give a free character slot with every purchase

That way:

a) No need for "undo" if someone changes their mind. It's impossible to have all slots locked, so you will always be able to create/re-roll a new character.

b) Due to the cost, people would think before locking a character

c) "malicious" locking would cost a hacker real money, and would achieve nothing but some clutter in the char select screen.

d) A-Net gets money out of it - the feature pays for its own development costs

e) No ongoing support needed - because of a)

That's about all you need. NCsoft must change their password change procedure.

In addition to the two I voted for (character/item locks and account restoration), which are lovely safety nets that I want to see added for my own peace of mind should the worst happen, the following things are so basic that they shouldn't be missing in the first place - but for some inexplicable reason NCsoft doesn't have them so they needed to be implemented ASAP:

Also, this:

I'm not going to pay NCsoft for making the improvements to their lack-of-security login/password/account system either. I don't mind a small one-off fee for extras like the deletion prevention and the account restoration, but paying for what we should already have? Pfff.

You can run out of slots: account can only have maximum of 32 slots, whould kid on suck if you want to lock character and already have max slots.

Hmmm....what would I like to see?

1. Unlinking of accounts from NCSoft. What's the point of having the website master account link when you can buy the stuff from the in-game store? Considering the security issues associated with changing passwords via the master account, if having this master account is required for the GW-GW2 HoM link, I wouldn't buy GW2.

2. IP checking. If my accounts were created in say North America, for example, and for the past four years I've been playing happily in North America, it should ring alarm bells somewhere if one minute I'm logging in from NA, and a few minutes later I'm apparently logging in from say China.

3. Deletion lock. Tag characters/items that can't be deleted,salvaged or sold. PIN system required if you want to merch/salvage/delete/transfer an item from that character.

And if they introduce a random code generator SecurID system, please don't make it exclusively available through the NCSoft store....

"Only" a maximum of 32. Oh come on, is that really going to happen?

People surely don't buy that many characters slots and play them all. Meaning, the only reason you'd need that many slots is for raw storage. And if it's raw storage you want, why would you buy all those character slots... when you can get a lot more storage for the same money by buying new accounts?

Well, suppose there ARE people in that situation. ANet can increase the maximum number of slots. Anyone subsequently buying huge numbers of character slots or locks needs to beware of the risks.

Or they could simply sell the lock to the user, but either a) the buyer doesn't get a free character slot with it, or b) they get a free account instead plus all skill/item unlock packs for it, and hell - they deserve it after buying THAT many slots.

b) sounds good. But a) wouldn't be so bad: You'd still get your lock; maliciously locking all 32 slots would "likely" cost $200 or more... probability tends to zero; possibility that a player has 32 characters that are all so important they need to lock them ALL against deletion... and they pay $300+ to do it... and therefore end up unable to re-roll characters any more... probability tends to zero.

Actually, Anet can find out exactly how many people are in that situation. If there are none, no problem. If there is only a handful of them, "too bad", let them take a hit for greater good. If there are lots, increase the maximum number of slots... or go with a) or b) above.

would be nice to be able to lock my characters their armors and items from salvaging hazards and deletion
also put a merch lock on it tho

also allow multiple private questions for that IP tracing option
that way security would be tighter

De-linking from NCSoft for one, yes please.

The issue with a SecureID/Keyfob/Dongle is price and upkeep - I highly doubt ANet would pay out for this to begin with (as it is quite expensive to implement based upon the number of subscribers/accounts they have). Plus the cost of the fob itself would more than likely be passed onto the player (which for peace of mind is probably worth paying, other will not though).

My preferred solution, in conjuction with the hardware tie-in and IP check, would be the in-game lock system. This would be beneficial indeed and I would probably go further with it and make this default on login and thus prompt a user for a "pin code" to unlock.

The unlock kepad could also be coded as to position numbers randomly. This is something I implemented into a system I built for a company a while back and has, to my knowledge, worked very well for them.

Example on your calculator you are used to

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

Each time the keypad appears, the numbers would be in different positions. E.g.

4 8 9
5 3 7
2 6 1

This would help to desist click loggers in determining numbers clicked, since everything is random. Throwing in some letters into the equation would be good too. ANet could even use pictures instead of actual numbers/letters, thus providing a little more security (since the Guild Wars memory is actually very easy to expose if you have some average knowledge of memory manipulation via code).

No matter what is done though, nothing is hack-proof. But at least we as players would have more peace of mind.

I voted for Strong Password Policy, as it is the only prevention listed that is fairly simple to implement and the easiest for the player base to use.

While this poll is useful for determining what the community would like done, it puts zero pressure on Anet/NC soft to do anything in the short term.

This poll will answer the HOW But what is needed is a clear Signal as to WHEN.

As interesting as this poll is, it only serves to make the debate spin round and round as it has done for the last 4 years.

Pressure needs to be exerted on Anet/NCsoft in conjunction with all this discussion.
Anet/NCsoft is currently not feeling any pain about this issue at all and so have no motivation to do anything about it.

They have your money so who cares?

Perhaps it's time to take this subject to IGN,MMOsite and other online sources than fansites...

I would suggest those who feel strongly enough send Regina A PM on this forum expressing this concern and send an email to [email protected] expressing those concerns.

Edit.. I don't get the percentages figures on the poll, they add up to more than 100 ??

What concerns me the most at the moment equally as much as the threat of accounts being hacked, is the the absolute silence from Anet in any of the threads which we as part of the gw community have voiced our opinions on about this very important subject.

Even a small gesture saying "we understand your concerns and will look into it" will suffice, instead of the complete and muted silece, or at the very least an acknowledgement that there is a problem that needs to be rectified as efficiently and as quickly as possible.

Then again this is Anet were talking about and I am sure the most pessimistic of people will feel that hell will freeze over before they admit theres a problem.

Sort it out Anet, I know its just a game but at the end of the day if the security of GW 1 is questionable now what makes you think players now will put faith in the security in GW 2 and purchase it only to have there characters and items destroyed/stolen several months later?

Pol

The percentages for each item, shows the proportion of people that voted for that item. Nr of votes / Total voters * 100.

You can vote for more than one option, so adding the percentages for each item is meaningless - and won't add up to 100.

I thought so, seems a really complicated way of going about things. Oh well

I'm going to give my opinion on the various options

• Static IP/MAC/HW checking
  Implementation on this is hard. I would agree for non-dynamic IP users or users who will be on a limited number of IP ranges (just enable the entire range). Keep in mind that IP might change for some reason and this will cause trouble (we had some serious trouble when our IT department changed the main router last week). A good way to communicate and confirm the change would be nice.
  
• Strong password policy
  I don't believe in more enforcement. Many people don't want the trouble of a 'strong' password, even if that trouble does not really exist.
  The main problem is using the same credentials on various places.
  To discourage brute-forcing it would be nice if a IP address or range can be put to slower logins when failing (not entirely on account level, else there is the possibility of denial of service).
  
• SecurID authentication option
  This is a great option. I use this for work as do many other people. One major problem. Battery will be empty in time. We had this problem several times with people in our IT department who use their token often. And we are not even talking about the people spilling drinks on the item or putting it in the washing machine.
  
• "NO DELETE" option on characters/items
  I think this is good, I would call the option 'fix to account'.
  Meaning marked items cannot be deleted, salvaged and cannot be moved from the account to another account.
  
• Authentication for storage access
  I don't see much added value to this. The 'fix to account' option mentiond above should work better.
  I know some websites offer a 'pin' to protect specific 'valuable' area's.
  It might slow down a hacker, but why is he on the account anyway.
  
• Randomized point and click input for passwords
  Would work against keyloggers. I can see some use for this, but not too much. I think it would be annoying if you d/c about every 15 minutes and have to log in while searching each time
  
• Compromised account restorations
  Ah, rollback. Sounds nice, would not work except when disabling trading
  
• Other H/W solution
  One thing on the 'fingerprint'. We have those at work on some workstations. Funny things. Till one colleague of mine called with the message: I cut my thumb last week and cannot log into the system.... Lucky the help desk for that application has quick response times.
  
• Other S/W solution
• No additional security required

Let me say this.
I do believe that account safety is very important. However, first priority is keeping unwanted people of the account, which is mainly concerned with the user. A-net can implement some things to help here, but this is not their main problem. It will be if their systems are hacked and credentials are stolen from them though.

There are plenty advices on the internet how to make accounts more safe. One of those advises is not sharing the same username/password combination everywhere.
Another is not downloading from an untrusted source or run security measures (like virus-/mallware scanner).

When an account is compromised nothing more can be done. People can do whatever they want with it. Sure, you can have an option that prevents all bad things. However, the hacker might get annoyed and rant in local chat in a major outpost, causing a perma ban (and while busy also change credentials so that you first have to get the account back only to find out it's perma banned).

My suggestion will be in the 'strong password policy'.
Have A-net do a simple check on strength.
All same characters, same case, dictionary for commong languages, low length = red
Variations in case or addition of numbers, low length = orange
Variations in case combined with addition of numbers, decent length = yellow (ish)
Variations in case with addition of special characters, decent length = green.

Give the result back when it's not green with a warning message depending on color. Red = huge warning, yellow = suggestion to add some special characters. People can choose to accept the unsafe pass or type a new stronger one.

And another suggestion. When the password is to be entered make a HUGE message on the window to please, please, please not use the same password as on other online resources.


The second option is something that A-net might implement with not that much effort.
However, I don't think we should expect this from them. Individual account safety is YOUR responsibility, not theirs. When it's about their databases containing those credentials or the servers running guild wars it's A-net's responsibility. But we are not talking about that, are we?

It's become clear over the past few weeks that no matter what we the users do, accounts are being still compromised. This all points to a weakness somewhere in the authentication process.

These design weaknesses in overview have been known about for a long period of time

This is very firmly with Anet's and NCsofts area of responsibility.

At this point in the game it does'nt matter to me what technique is used, so long as my characters and stuff is protected from deliberate sabotage.

Oh, another thing I don't want to add in my previous posting.

A couple of weeks ago there was a kind of strange transaction on my bank card.
In the morning I used it in my country, in the afternoon I used it in my country and in between it was used in South Africa, which is about a day travel away (flying...). Bank solved this fast (thank you for skimming my card....)
I guess it would be possible to detect IP usage and if it's likely that those two can be used in the timeframe.

I like "red/yellow/green" light when entering passwords idea, IIRC, no mmo currently has it, but it has became kind of standart practice elsewhere.

Instant "your password sucks and is easy to break" notfications.

i think this poll is gonna be heavily flawed

theres far too many lazy people on the forums who wont take the time to read through what each one means and how it works. they will just click the ones that they know (dont delete bank stuffs plz) (password for bank plz)

personally i think the static IP checking would be good

i dunno how they could implement the password on xunlai chest, i certainly wouldnt want to enter a code everytime i opened my storage, everytime i logged in perhaps? i could live with that.

also think that there should be an option to lock character so they cant be deleted without a code

To quote Chthon:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...&postcount=117
Given this quote, I do not see why actions we take are even brought up.

If this issue can be resolved by our own actions, then PLEASE somebody make a Riverside thread describing exactly what we should be doing. Sticky it and plaster that link into EVERY "I got hacked!11"-thread before closing it.
If on the other hand the accounts can be compromised REGARDLESS of what we do, then STOP bringing the actions we take to this discussion. Because that's NOT the issue here!

Just as a minor point of clarification, Guru does do this. Because there are many reasons an account can be compromised. See our closing text below:

Read this on security, run this to download anti-malware software, go here to ask for support on your issue.