Phishing attempt? or email breach?

[Adder_Atl]

I got the following email email this morning:

We have the evidence to prove that your account involved in the controversial game currency transaction .If your account is found violating Terms of Use, it can, and will be suspended/closed/or terminated. In order to keep this from occurring, you should immediately verify that you are the original owner of the account.To verify your identity please visit the following webpage:https secure ncsoft com /login.Only Account Administration will be able to assist with account retrieval issues.

The NCsoft Team

Thing is I don't play any of these games.

Did anyone else get this?

Has the email data base been compromised?

TIA

 

[Black Sun]

Most likely it's the same deal as this: http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=208644

 

[Beer_Cayse]

I got one as well. I'm treating it as phishing as anything associated with NCSoft (Lineage II) is about 5 years out of date and if true they are welcome to kill the account. Pffft.

 

[Adder_Atl]

Where are they getting the email address from.? some thing has been compromised.

I checked the message source and the link actually forwards you to a site the ends in .pl (Poland?)

 

[Llewen]

I got the following email email this morning:

We have the evidence to prove that your account involved in the controversial game currency transaction .If your account is found violating Terms of Use, it can, and will be suspended/closed/or terminated. In order to keep this from occurring, you should immediately verify that you are the original owner of the account.To verify your identity please visit the following webpage:https://securetextaddedtomakelinknonworkable.ncsoft.com /login.Only Account Administration will be able to assist with account retrieval issues.

The NCsoft Team

Thing is I don't play any of these games.

Did anyone else get this?

Has the email data base been compromised?

TIA

Yes it's a phishing email. Just take a close look at the links (not what you can read, but the actual links behind the text), and you should see that they aren't a part of any NCSoft domain.

edit: And by "links" I mean the links that they actually want you to click on to enter your account information. There may be other links in the email that they don't care about that are legitimate.

 

[Experimental]

Where are they getting the email address from.? some thing has been compromised.

I checked the message source and the link actually forwards you to a site the ends in .pl (Poland?)

I was told that a WoW acct now uses your email as your acct name. Don't know for certain, since I don't play WoW.

 

[Kellgory]

I've been getting emails like that claiming they're from NCSoft or Blizzard. Apparently my fictional WOW account has been very very bad for the past two months since I get an email just about every other day saying my account will be terminated unless I verify information with the billing or customer care departments. I have no other online accounts other than UO, so I just laugh and delete from the spam folder.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

I got the following email email this morning:

We have the evidence to prove that your account involved in the controversial game currency transaction .If your account is found violating Terms of Use, it can, and will be suspended/closed/or terminated. In order to keep this from occurring, you should immediately verify that you are the original owner of the account.To verify your identity please visit the following webpage:https secure ncsoft com /login.Only Account Administration will be able to assist with account retrieval issues.

The NCsoft Team

Thing is I don't play any of these games.

Did anyone else get this?

Has the email data base been compromised?

TIA

I got that too. It was written so well... I clicked on it and gave them everything. They took all my loot but at least Im not suspended.


We should have a sticky thread to post these ASAP that red flags when something new is added? So we know to look. They are always so lame. But get people.

 

[Gorbs]

What I want to know is whether I'm receiving these phishing attempts because the phisher somehow obtained my email address that was associated with some online game and assumed I might be a subscriber to the game(s) mentioned in the email, or if it's a random, scattershot phishing attempt. As of yet I have not seen any in the email my uo account is associated with, but have seen them in my email account my (old) WoW account was associated with.

 

[Kellgory]

Who knows how or where they got your email address and I doubt you would know if they hacked into or purchased your email address from some online vendor since I doubt if they would announce that they had a security breach (if they knew) or were selling customers email addresses. Then again if they had hacked into an online vendor website you would think you would have received emails targetted to the games that that site catered too. Have you ever used an online auction site for MMO's or purchased items online from any site other than gamecodes?

Only one of my email accounts are getting these emails and I've never had a WOW or NCSoft game account, so I don't think it has anything to do with you having used the email once for WOW. It is possible that they are using a shotgun tactic in sending out as many emails for the most popular online game(s) in hopes of hitting someone.

 

[Bobar]

Yep I got one too this morning - having read it and noted the delightful grammatical errors I just deleted it.

 

[Luvmylace]

I also received it.I forwarded it to the support team at NCSoft

 

[GarthGrey]

I received it as well, and have never played WoW. I didn't receive it until I went to the UOGamecodes page yesterday. Yes, I'm making an accusation.

 

[KoolAidAddict]

Same here.
Received, and forwarded to the real NCSoft support, as well as a reply sent with some really well chosen 4 letter wordys too!
Some twit @hotmail something or another.

 

[hen]

This is directly related to UO. Sort it out Captain Cal.

 

[Guido_LS]

I've gotten them from *NCSoft*, *Blizzard*, multiple banks, and an electric co-op, that was only 875 miles away from our service area... None of which I had any business dealings with.

An e-mail address is anything but a secure, private piece of information - especially through a major ISP (I used to get dozens of pieces of spam, that were CC'ed to thousands of other people, when I was with Comcast, on a weekly basis.). I've found the only foolproof method is to actually pay for a domain, and have your own e-mail setup, including complete admin abilities. If I don't authorize an incoming address, it bounces right back again. It's also the best use for yahoo, gmail and AoL. Throw away e-mails.

Not only are they phishing, they are also fishing - they are just using mass mail programs that put out thousands of different versions of usernames, all @someisp.com... and they're probably getting half again as many bounces as they are hits on real addresses.

Best options are - report it to your ISP as both a phishing attempt and as spam, report it to the company being spoofed, and delete it from your system. A scam is only as successful as the victim is willing.

 

[Tjalle]

Got one as well...

*delete*

 

[MalagAste]

I got one too from NCSoft which I found a tad odd since.... as far as I am aware I have NEVER Played an NCSoft game in my life...

That I'm aware... so if my fictitious account is doing something illegal .... then by all means they can ban it.....


hehe I just laughed and deleted the silly message.

 

[Kellgory]

You know what is a scary senerio and that is with the talk from the Devs about putting in non-intrusive ways to detect scripts and hacks, that if the people that are sending these emails wait until about a week after this is implimented and then send out emails stating that your UO account was found to be violating the TOC, I wonder how many people would fall for it. I'm sure the detection program/coding would be a hot topic on these forums so people would be aware of it, and then to get a email shortly afterwards saying that your account has been flagged, I imagine there would be more than a few people that would panic and send the info without thinking about it.

 

[Blesh]

I was told that a WoW acct now uses your email as your acct name. Don't know for certain, since I don't play WoW.

This is true.

 

[Borric]

I've found the only foolproof method is to actually pay for a domain, and have your own e-mail setup, including complete admin abilities. If I don't authorize an incoming address, it bounces right back again. It's also the best use for yahoo, gmail and AoL. Throw away e-mails.

This is what I have had for about 3 years now. About a year ago, for a time, I got a bunch of phishing emails. Since I own the domain name and admin the email, I know exactly who had the email address. The address was know only to me and a certain UO forum. The emails were forwarded to the companies in question. I think there were even a few claiming to be from Getty Oil or some such nonsense. After a few weeks of forwarding them, I guess they finally got shut down. I haven't had any suspicious email since then. One large Bank in America actually responded me and thanked me, confirming that the emails were indeed phishing attempts.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I received it as well, and have never played WoW. I didn't receive it until I went to the UOGamecodes page yesterday. Yes, I'm making an accusation.

Coincidence, nothing more.

I got one - to the [email protected] email. I assure you that that address doesn't play any games and doesn't buy stuff from uogamecodes.com.

 

[popps]

I got it as well.

What I do not understand, is how did I get it since I play no NCSoft game.

I mean, they say my e-mail address is linked to a NCSoft account but I never had a NCSoft account since I never played any of their games that I can be aware of.

 

[DarkVoid]

I got the following email email this morning:

We have the evidence to prove that your account involved in the controversial game currency transaction .If your account is found violating Terms of Use, it can, and will be suspended/closed/or terminated. In order to keep this from occurring, you should immediately verify that you are the original owner of the account.To verify your identity please visit the following webpage:https secure ncsoft com /login.Only Account Administration will be able to assist with account retrieval issues.

The NCsoft Team

Thing is I don't play any of these games.

Did anyone else get this?

Has the email data base been compromised?

TIA

Yes, I've seen this one hit my email address twice - the second came within minutes of receiving the first one.

For phishing emails - and I also recommend that anyone wanting to try and alert administrators to the scam attempts coming from compromised zombiefied user connections do the same - I simply feed it into a SpamCop reporting account, and let that site's parser tell me it's a phishing attempt when it names the source IP address in the report generated.

If you go to www.spamcop.net and register the email address you received the scam email attempt from, and then get the message source copied and pasted into the parse box, it will offer to send a report to the owner of the source email address it finds.

The reason this should be done is that these zombie PC's will only get listed on blocklists and blocked if there are enough reports to cause this to happen. Many mailserver administrators use this and other blocklists to build a list of addresses that should be blocked or filtered out of their mail systems.

If these phishing attempts are allowed to go unnoticed the spammers and phishers will just keep abusing these zombie PCs.

You should also check your state/federal government websites to see if they actually have any interest in collecting phishing emails, they might be encouraged to investigate if they can process enough data to identify and prosecute whoever is behind the scamming/phishing attempts.

There's a lot more to it than that but this is the essential part, make the unnoticed scammer noticed by someone and, hopefully, they will have an arresting development in their criminal career.

 

[Salya Sin]

I've gotten two claiming my password had been changed on my WoW account... which I don't, nor have I ever played...

I also got one telling me that my email account was being used in some other game.

I just delete them.

 

[aranier]

I've received two in the past week to my email address that is only used for stratics.

 

[Viper09]

Yeah, got that too. I also get similar emails for paypall, ebay, etc. It is not uncommon to get these emails even if you have no connections to the game/website in question. Not sure how they get peoples emails but it's very easy to detect a phishing attempt by simply examining the link and reading the email carefully.

 

[Pawain]

What I want to know is whether I'm receiving these phishing attempts because the phisher somehow obtained my email address that was associated with some online game and assumed I might be a subscriber to the game(s) mentioned in the email, or if it's a random, scattershot phishing attempt. As of yet I have not seen any in the email my uo account is associated with, but have seen them in my email account my (old) WoW account was associated with.

I have gotten similiar things from banks. They want me to verify my online account. I dont use the two banks I recieved the e-mails from.

Just like the spam. They send them out in bulk to random e-mails.