Hacked Accounts

[CatLord]

Greetings Fellow Citizens...

Our honest shard has recently seen a rise on the number of hacked accounts...

Many of our long time friends were, at least once, the target of one of those attempts...

So straight to the point...

Hacked accounts... items lost...

Now we have kept a close eye on the trade forums... and we got hold of some specific players selling items related to those illegal actions...
(they were dumb enough to keep the engraved containers... duh)

So please say NO to FENCING!


Thank you.

 

[Zuckuss]

Yeah apparently someone was selling a ton of stuff at the bank today. Stuff that was owned by the person who was hacked

 

[Shotgun]

not only are they selling the stuff but they are parading around in the suits of the former owners like its a joke. seems like a whole guild is involved in the plunder of the hacked accounts and they are running around laughing and joking about it.

 

[Mirage]

They shouldn't have got hacked then. :-/

Mir

 

[Zuckuss]

Yeah that sort of behavior is common in shady people. Usually the problem is, that their lives are so bad, that they can only bring joy to themselves by causing pain to someone over the internet. It must be sad to be them = /

 

[Zuckuss]

They shouldn't have got hacked then. :-/

Mir

Wow, I am sure that the affected parties will accept your generous act of sympathy and compassion thankfully.

 

[Moreeg]

From the IT front... we are in the midst of another virus outbreak and are seeing a resurgence of phishing emails, including a new form of one that sees you following a link in an email that has NOTHING to do with any phishing scheme. The scheme depends on you having a window (or frame) open to something you needed to log in to, and you have not logged out (bank, etc). It then manages to grab log in info through the already open window (or frame).

So anytime you log into something and finish your business, log out! I know that some people lost UO accounts because they had their default email as an ISP based email, and the attacker physically requested the password from the ISP. There is a thread in uhall about this. To save my poor fingers, here is what I put there, I hope it helps someone:

I worked as an IT consultant for almost ten years, and I can tell you that real "hacking" is very, very, VERY rare.

99% of the time, people I dealt with who were "hacked" were actually victims of their own errors. They downloaded things they shouldnt have and got malware on their computer, or they answered a phising email (come on... anyone who doesnt know by now that NO email provider or bank or credit card company or anyone is going to ask you to enter your account info to "verufy" it, is probably in need of a refresher course on basic computer safety).

Another good one is people who shut off antivirus/firewall software because it takes too much system resources while they are doing something or another. Its the equivalent of leaving your keys in the car with the door unlocked because you just need to run in a store... real quick.

Nothing is going to make you 100% secure, but for the most part, the error lies with the user in these cases.

I wouldnt use an ISP email address for my account anyway, if not just for the fact that they are easy to fool and get someones mail password from... I have pretended to be someone I was not hundreds of times and retrieved passwords, but I was doing it because it is easier for me to do than it would be for the client to get on the phone with the ISP and stammer and "uhhh" at questions he or she didnt understand. My suggestion would be to use a free email account, preferably from g-mail, as they seem to have the most intuitive spam filtering.

Sorry if I come off sounding like a know-it-all... I really just dont want to see people get scammed.

My advice to anyone who cares is:

*have multiple email accounts.
*have one specific email account that is JUST for when you need an email address to sign up for things (I use yahoo, beccause their spam filtering is horrible anyway). you can always change it in your account settings for the site to a different email account if the site is useful and doesnt spam.
*have one email address for friends and family type general mail.
*have one email address for business purposes ( , so you dont have to give an email address in business situations that is [email protected]).
*NEVER use the same password for any two email accounts, games, system log ins, or anything.
*if you have trouble remembering passwords, look into PGP or some form of encryption, and just encrypt a file with all of the info so that you and only you will be able to reference it if need be.

Common sense (un-common sense?) goes a long way... you can still get hit, as Im sure some of you who were did take precautions, but you can at least go a long way toward protecting yourself.

Oh, and I always called this "the talk" when I was in IT, it applied to guys more often than women, but there were a few women... I always felt it was the adult equivalent of the birds and bees talk with a child. But in all seriousness, just spring and pay for a subscription to some porn site of your liking. A majority of computer related issues I saw most likely started with someone looking at or downloading "free" porn videos, lol. If youre that into adult babies, its going to be cheaper in the long run to pay to be a member at a site... hell, one visit from me cost more that the year subscription to most of those sites, and I had a lot of clients who I saw every six months or so... (not to knock adult babies if that happens to be your thing!).

 

[Shotgun]

well one of the people that had their accounts hacked was using g-mail or hotmail so i suggest not using either of those and also dont use the same email for message boards that you use for uo. keep a seperate one just for uo that no one knows.

 

[Moreeg]

well one of the people that had their accounts hacked was using g-mail or hotmail so i suggest not using either of those and also dont use the same email for message boards that you use for uo. keep a seperate one just for uo that no one knows.

gmail is a good choice, hotmail I wouldnt go with... Ive heard to many insider rumors about hotmail allowing spam from certain high paying advertisers to "slip by" the filter.


But really, ISP email addresses are the problematic ones. But Im really just talking about the person who had someone call their ISP and get their password to take their account. The others... Ive heard any number of stories.I know first hand that a lot of people share their account information with others. From letting friends use their account (or have a toon on it to try), to people using leveling services, and then there is the fact that people still fall for phishing scams and allow malware to be installed on their computer. It could be countless things.

But I think more often than not, it gets down to people not practicing safe, smart computer use.

 

[Rathma]

It's pretty sad and pathetic for someone to do that to another.

 

[Lady_Calina]

I heard about this yesterday and that's ridiculous. I hope the people behind it get banned.

 

[Mirage]

They shouldn't have got hacked then. :-/

Mir

Wow, I am sure that the affected parties will accept your generous act of sympathy and compassion thankfully.

Wow, and I am sure they will take better precautions from now on....it's not like they haven't known how to protect their accounts. Probably just didn't pay attention to the advice.

Mir

 

[Moreeg]

We all get a little laxed when we go for so long without a problem. I feel terrible for the people this happened to, and I hope the rest of us use this as a reminder that we need to be careful on the internet, because not everyone is as friendly as we all are.

 

[Ashlen]

Moreeg is right we do get laxed especially if we have never
had anything to go wrong or happen to us to or someone
we know and care about.

But it just takes us to hear about these types of things to
open our eyes that it might be us next time.
Then let it happen inside your guild and to one of your best
friends that you hold dear. Much less seeing ICQs stating they are
looking around to see who will be next.
Then you are really frightened to the point you change everything
and your afraid to log off.

People love to set back in their comfy computer chairs and
judge us for our spelling, our grammar or even our play style and
put a label on us as to the type of person we are because of that.
They think because of those things the people that were hacked
surely deserved it.
No One Deserves what they got.

No one deserves to log onto Catskills and find there isn’t one single
character there anymore after playing for 10 years at the top of
the game. Finding out you no longer have any vendors with one
single item on it or there is no home where your houses us to be.
You have nothing as if you never existed on Catskills at all.
You tell me who deserves that.

So with that all said, I want to say this
I posted this on the UO Trade East Coast Board and wanted
to share it here as well.
But do not send out to anyone your email address
if it is the one that is attached to your UO account

If you do you are running the risk of that person or someone
else that may see or get a hold of your email, using it to
HACKS into your account or accounts
and Deleting all of your characters, vendors, and dropping
your house to the ground like you never existed.

It has been known to happen.

So try to get in touch with people via other ways other
than an email that is attached to your UO account.

Just a friendly warning
Cause I’m a nice person.
And I care about all my UO family and their accounts.

 

[CatLord]

The player that was parading around in the suits of the former owners is back on catskills along with two guildmates... so people...

Code red, shields up... This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill!


(It sucks to not let things go... doesn't it? No more hacking for you my friend...)

If you want to know their current guilds and characters please PM me... thank you.

 

[Zosimus]

Sending you a PM for the info. Thanks!

 

[Scarst]

Greetings Fellow Citizens...
So please say NO to FENCING!

I finally have something to agree with catlord on Fencing is awful hate using that skill swords have been nerfed! A mace isn't as fast as a Katana that's bs!
Swords need revamped! Either that or bring down macing and all you fencers with that stupid bushido skill can go gimp out else where!