NCsoft let a hacker into my account. Nice one!

I haven't been around here in a LONG time since I pretty much don't play GW any more. A friend who still plays alerted me to the fact that he saw me online, or a character on my account (with chinese characters, but with my toon's name in brackets afterward)

I confirmed it wasn't me. I sent an email to Support with the required info to get my account hopefully restored. Did a scan of my system, no keyloggers or malware found. I don't share my account details with anyone, and have never bought gold. The only way I think they may have got the info is from a fansite, I used to belong to several in my playing days and think it's not out of the realms of possibility that I might have used the same password and email on one that I used for my account. Stupid, yes. I hold my hands up to that one.

But the hacker still shouldn't be able to get into my account without knowing my character name, right? WRONG. I combed through my emails and found one from NCSoft Support dated 23/12/2009 with info on a support ticket - the Customer Name on it was "dsfnad sadfgdsf" (You'd think that would be a big red flag to support, huh?) with title "Please help me find out my charactor (sic) name."

Surely they must request some sort of identification or CD Keys before releasing this information? It seems they didn't. Rather scary don't you think? I don't have any credit card details on the account, I've done a password reset now, so the hacker will be out of the account now, so just waiting for them to do something about it and restore my account. But my faith is really shaken in NCSoft security, and can't see me buying GW2 now, shame as I was really looking forward to it.

Obviously, they don't, or they would have proper security. Or an authenticator key available like WoW does.

ANet does care.
(see Regina's posts in the security thread)
Please, PM or email Regina as soon as possible with everything you stated here.
ANet is trying to re-enact anyway the hacker(s) maybe infiltrating the NCSoft account site.
Good luck hun....ANet IS trying to help, even tho we see no evidence of their 'masters' NCSoft trying to.

Apparently it happening ALOT now,my brother just called me and ask if I had reset his PW or tried to log on. Told him it been over 2 years since been on that account, and now someone it trying to reset his PW. I got this call today, so I have no clue WTF or even how people are getting these accounts if they haven't even been used in over 2 years. My brother does use the NCSoft store for Aion, so does that all come back to the question is it the store or not? I for one do not use that store!!! and so far haven't had a problem with my account. But ANET will say due to research and recent studies LOL it is not the store

Copenhagen Master, it's not the store for me to be sure. I'm not playing Aion so have never used the store.

You may have a linked account, and don't remember the date you did it.
Please, Email and PM Regina?

I have PMed Regina, also Gaile Gray is looking into it, she pmed me asking for the incident number for the support ticket I mentioned (where the character info was requested)

I *think* my account was unlinked. I have an NCSoft account that I used for City of Heroes, but that is not linked to my GW account.

Most excellent!
And on a Sunday too!
ANet does care Keira, but please be patient...this is a huge problem to be worked out, and all the info you can provide will help the process of elimination that ANet must go through.... may take some time.

ok! if you got the free storage pane then your linked for sure!

When I forgot the names of my mule accounts, I contacted support. They told me that everyone gets a "one time only" waiver of not needing proof of the accounts. I did not need to prove anything except that I knew the e-mail address of my mule accounts, and they provided me with names on them.

It is scary, and I even thought at the time that they could be helping hackers get into people's accounts.

My advice is to use up that "one time only". Even if people don't play GW anymore or don't intend to for a length of time, at least other people wouldn't be able to request that information for you.

I don't have the free storage pane. It's been a *long* time since I used the account

I had another pm from Gaile stating that they have increased the security on ownership requirements, and that this happened on the very day the hacker requested the information. So it looks like I just got unlucky but hopefully it should be more difficult for this to happen in the future. The person at NCSoft that released my info has been informed and also the teams in US/Europe are also aware. So now just to wait for my account to be reinstated! I'm impressed with the responses I've had on a weekend too.

The only thing you can do is contact NCSoft:

www.guildwars.com/support

Hope you get your account back!

Braxton, it seems it's being sorted, I should hopefully be reinstated tomorrow

How can you not know a name on mule accounts.

Did you put them in your guild or on friends list. Get the name there.

I want to clarify some of the information contained in the OP, specifically the part about account ownership. A few errors may have been made early on in this process, but the process has been improved to prevent errors in account ownership verification. For security reasons, I am not able to provide details on what exactly is asked to verify account ownership, however please be assured that you do need to prove ownership of an account to find out a character name through customer support.

On that note, I think there's nothing more to be said.