In Response to "Gamers Beware"

Naabu01

Original thread found in Announcements.

Response : If this game was popular, I'd worry SMILEY

ThePigeonKing · 03/19/2008 11:21:10

ok, thank you.

The general rules about what not to do with your account info is really just a general "what not to do" with any password info anywhere. I'm not too worried.

**Kybutra**

To me its nothing new, If you play World of Warcraft theres always some scam going on to get your account information and details.

**Dripping-Cheese**

I've read about this. Most of the targeted sites are aimed at "one handed" surfers! SMILEY

Still, I think it's a poor showing to actually have to tell people again and again how to use common sense with their passwords!

**Symmetric**

And nearly every "hack" and keylogger comes from a site that exploits some Internet Explorer or Windows vulnerability. Hopefully most people here are savvy enough to avoid IE like the plague and only visit sites they trust.

**MotorZ**

Symmetric wrote:

And nearly every "hack" and keylogger comes from a site that exploits some Internet Explorer or Windows vulnerability. Hopefully most people here are savvy enough to avoid IE like the plague and only visit sites they trust.

Oh, so I shouldn't go to lolilogurpasswordz.com?

**MetaLogic**

The post did say popular games

We're Popular?

When did this happen?!

**GoDGiVeR**

MetaLogic wrote:

The post did say popular games

We're Popular? When did this happen?!

3 years ago.

**Virrago**

So the question is..... how do you know if your infected and how do you get rid of it if you are... Since I notice neither of those articles mentioned any virus software that would detect it.

**SolidRevolver** · 03/19/2008 13:37:07

Never use the same password on two different things and regularly change your passwords and you should be fine.

EDIT: Obviously keep your Anti-Virus and Spy-Wear scanner updated and perform regular scans too.

**Symmetric**

Or use a M... nah, too easy.

**phi**

any decent software firewall will warn you the first time a new program tries to send outgoing data.

Sygate Personal Firewall FTW (before Symantec bought them and messed it up)

Phrack

It doesn't have much to do with the popularity of the game, to be honest.

Password scams are usually designed to collect all passwords, allowing the scammer to pick and choose which ones are worth anything and which ones to discard into the trash heap. A growing trend right now is to obtain game passwords to MMO's, regardless of title/publishing company. In one instance (I'd link you if I had one, but I'll keep an eye out and see if I can't obtain a link) the popular trend of LCD picture frames became an infection source to at least 10,000 unsuspecting users.

Essentially, what happened was that someone in the manufacturing plant with access to the software that is loaded onto those LCD picture frames, planted a trojan into the software that made it's way into 10k units before they were packaged and shipped to stores to be sold. When those frames were purchased, brought home by their new owners, and plugged into the USB ports of the owner's respective computers, it instantaneously uploaded the trojan, infecting the computers.

From here, the trojans went to work, collecting passwords to transmit back to the culprit responsible. And if you think about it, if this can happen to something as non-threatening as a newly purchased LCD picture frame, image what else it could be done with. How many things do you plug into your computer daily? iPods, PDA's, cellular phones, digital cameras, etc. The truth is that any of them could be infected with a password-seeking trojan, and not only would you not necessarily know it, there'd be no way for you to know.

It's become a racket to gain illegal access to another person's MMO account, sell off all of the items in their inventory that are tradable, and put the information/gold/credits up on eBay. When that sells and the character has been gutted in terms of goods, then they put the account itself up on eBay and make their profit off of it. Go to eBay sometime and look at just how much accounts are going for, for SOE games, that have XP-capped characters on the account.

If someone wants to do this to you bad enough, they will do it. SOE's just being kind enough to give you a heads up, and try to keep you from doing something stupid to insure it will happen.

**Ubershank**

*Puts on tin foil hat* o.o

**ChloeAnn**

Ubershank wrote:

*Puts on tin foil hat* o.o

isnt that for aliens? >_>