Awesome advice! the only problem is everything you just wrote I have told him to do the third time it happened. The third time he got it back he totally erased everything from his PC and reinstalled the entire thing, in fact WoW is the ONLY thing he said he has on it, he made that his WoW lap top, thats what leads me to think it's a Content ID thing.
He's not reinstalling from a backup is he? He should install from the original CD's or download from the internet. Do NOT make a backup of anything and then bring it back from the backup after formatting the harddrive. The only thing that you should backup on your PC is your own content files, never backup program files or at least do not recover them from a backup if you think your PC has been compromised.
Yeah I asked him and he said the guys in the IT department from the company his wife works for gave her some kind of disk to clean his system completly and he reinstalled from the disk and not a backup. Infact he got so upset the third time this happened that he took all his WoW disks and snapped them in two, then cleaned the system and used the original backup CDs and re-installed. Needless to say he had to go back out and re-purchase th WoW disks after we convinced him not to quit.
Don't tell him this, but he didn't have to do that. You actually don't need the disks for anything, all you need is the key. You can download the client straight from Blizzard's website if you have your account info....oops.
LOL! yeah I won't tell him that now. He may really get a case of the quits.
About going to bestbuy, I was going to go to try and find the AV program you all were talking about but I just realized that I can, get that for him on the website.
lots of great advice here, I will go one step further and add my own. if you want to download and maintain safe mods, use this nifty tool wowmatrix It lets you update and install mods, and even browse for them with a push of a button, and they are all pre scanned to be virus and keylogger free! you can run it everyday before logging into WoW and it will let you know which mods need to be updated, you click the update all button and its done! was a godsend on patch days! you can find the tool here www.wowmatrix.com enjoy!
Mods by their very nature are safe, there is no account hacking abilities in mods and they are just scripts that don't even run until the game is loaded. The problem is that people download files they think are mods and run executable programs that install viruses.
This is exactly why you would want to use WoW Matrix. WoW Matrix guarantees that the files you are downloading are NOT viruses. It only downloads the files from official sources and scans the files for viruses and/or keyloggers. With this little tool you don't have to go to searching all over the web for your add-ons, it's already done it for you. On top of that it guarantees you have the latest version and it automatically installs all the add-ons for you, you NEVER run an executable to install addons. The only executable you ever run is WoW Matrix itself. WoW Matrix has been tested by CNET's download.com and certified that it doesn't contain any malware. I have been using it for months without incident. You're much more likely to get a virus/keylogger searching all over the internet for the latest update for your addons then getting one from using WoW Matrix. Read the following from WoW Matrix's website and from CNET's Download.com and see what you think.
Your friend is not invulnerable to getting a keylogger. There is no magic disk that ensures his system is clean. Blizzard isn't hacking his accounts and xfire didn't download a keylogger on his system.
Honestly if all he wants to do is try to figure out ways to blame everyone but himself, he will never find out the problem and thus never fix it. Either beat him upside the head with a heavy object or give up on him. After getting hacked 4 times it is safe to say that blaming other people isn't going to solve his issues.
Originally posted by Pappy13 This is exactly why you would want to use WoW Matrix. WoW Matrix guarantees that the files you are downloading are NOT viruses. It only downloads the files from official sources and scans the files for viruses and/or keyloggers. With this little tool you don't have to go to searching all over the web for your add-ons, it's already done it for you. On top of that it guarantees you have the latest version and it automatically installs all the add-ons for you, you NEVER run an executable to install addons. The only executable you ever run is WoW Matrix itself. WoW Matrix has been tested by CNET's download.com and certified that it doesn't contain any malware. I have been using it for months without incident. You're much more likely to get a virus/keylogger searching all over the internet for the latest update for your addons then getting one from using WoW Matrix. Read the following from WoW Matrix's website and from CNET's Download.com and see what you think. http://www.wowmatrix.com/safe-computing.html http://www.download.com/WowMatrix-WoW-Addon-Updater/3000-2121_4-10759558.html Just my opinion, I could be wrong.
There are no perfect programs. All virus checkers miss viruses. All programs have errors, flaws and bugs and report false positives. There is no magic disk that will make your bulletproof. If a hacker sets their sites on circumventing this program, odds are they will find a way.
Maybe the program is the bees knees, but you are essentially taking control of your computer and putting it into the hands of some automated program that can fail to do its intended purpose. If you know how to extract files from a .zip file and put them in the correct directory there is no need to every worry about malicious files.
Originally posted by Scripture1 I will make this as detailed and short as possible. I have a friend that plays WoW and he has a high lvl toons that has been hacked 4 times so far, every time they hack him blizzard tells him they will not release the account back over to him until they investigate it. Thet first time blizzard returned the account to him, many of his alts were deleted and lost, only his lvl 70 hunter was left and they took all his gold and tossed many of his BG armor (That's just evil). The second time his account was hacked was a shock because he changed his passwords and everything but they still hacked it. They made him wait 2 weeks both times they hacked it and he had to fax a lot of documentation to blizzard just to get his account back, everytime he gets his account hacked he has to go through a lot of faxing stuff to get it back. It has happened four times, the latest it has happened was lastnight. We were both lvling out deathnights and I logged out for bed before he did. He logged out at 12:00am. Another friend we play with (we are friends in RL) logged in and saw his hunter exploring the new area, my other friend whispered him and said "Hi bro" because thats how we address eachother, we never just say "hello" but this person responding with a "hello" and when my friend caught on that it was not him he started questioning him but he never got a response. He called him in the morning to ask him if that was him or not and he was just as shocked as anything; he said it wasn't him and when he tried to log in after my friend told him, he was told that his account is under investigation. This guy is a good friend of mine and he wont even give me his info (not that I want it) and I asked if he ever shared his info with anyone he said no. I'm tired of this happening to him as I know he is as well but blizzard won't do anything about it. I think who ever is hacking his account is doing so easily because they have his "Content ID" when we played FFXI we never had this issue because of the security and privacy of the game. I'm telling him to ask blizzard to change his Content ID but he was told they won't do that. I think they should be obligated to do so since there is nothing that he can do to stop the hacking, and that is a breach of the privacy agreement. I don't want to make this too long so basicaly I'm asking if this has happened to anyone else on WoW, and if so then what is the permanent solution if there is one? I would hate to see him give up and quit because of this. THNX!
Get good antivirus software such as avast!. Type your password in text file and copy and pass it into the password box each time you login (keyloggers usually cant read the clipboard). Use a strong password with atleast 2 numbers and doesn't contain any info such as your DoB, name, etc. Not sure if blizzard can but you can request to get your account name changed.
Not visiting malicious sites for porn, hacks, etc etc also helps. eh
I will make this as detailed and short as possible. I have a friend that plays WoW and he has a high lvl toons that has been hacked 4 times so far, every time they hack him blizzard tells him they will not release the account back over to him until they investigate it. Thet first time blizzard returned the account to him, many of his alts were deleted and lost, only his lvl 70 hunter was left and they took all his gold and tossed many of his BG armor (That's just evil). The second time his account was hacked was a shock because he changed his passwords and everything but they still hacked it. They made him wait 2 weeks both times they hacked it and he had to fax a lot of documentation to blizzard just to get his account back, everytime he gets his account hacked he has to go through a lot of faxing stuff to get it back. It has happened four times, the latest it has happened was lastnight. We were both lvling out deathnights and I logged out for bed before he did. He logged out at 12:00am. Another friend we play with (we are friends in RL) logged in and saw his hunter exploring the new area, my other friend whispered him and said "Hi bro" because thats how we address eachother, we never just say "hello" but this person responding with a "hello" and when my friend caught on that it was not him he started questioning him but he never got a response. He called him in the morning to ask him if that was him or not and he was just as shocked as anything; he said it wasn't him and when he tried to log in after my friend told him, he was told that his account is under investigation. This guy is a good friend of mine and he wont even give me his info (not that I want it) and I asked if he ever shared his info with anyone he said no. I'm tired of this happening to him as I know he is as well but blizzard won't do anything about it. I think who ever is hacking his account is doing so easily because they have his "Content ID" when we played FFXI we never had this issue because of the security and privacy of the game. I'm telling him to ask blizzard to change his Content ID but he was told they won't do that. I think they should be obligated to do so since there is nothing that he can do to stop the hacking, and that is a breach of the privacy agreement. I don't want to make this too long so basicaly I'm asking if this has happened to anyone else on WoW, and if so then what is the permanent solution if there is one? I would hate to see him give up and quit because of this. THNX!
Your friend should thank the Gaming-Gods, get the hint, quit WoW forever and play a real game.
Hacked 4 times, that sounds like his fault. Using programs to try and bot or using addons that have keyloggers imbedded in them.
I played and still do from time to time and my account has never been hacked. I started when WoW first came out and up to the latest expansion off and on.
Most if not all the hacking problem going on in WoW is due to USER ERROR (aka using programs to bot with, using addons that are unproven and probably have a keylogger imbedded in them).
Most if not all the hacking problem going on in WoW is due to USER ERROR (aka using programs to bot with, using addons that are unproven and probably have a keylogger imbedded in them).
There is no possible way for people to keylogger through an addon.
People downloading files that have viruses in them that are labeled as addons is why people think addons can keylog. Even then the virus isn't installed until someone clicks on a .EXE file or some installer, which no addon should ever require.
Addons are perfectly safe, it is users that are dangerous.
As one who has was hacked shortly after my roommate was hacked twice, I feel his frustration. Just tell him to spend the 7 bucks plus shipping and get that Blizzard key code authenticator and all his worries will be gone.
And it does sound like he's got some other keylogger issues to work out too. If his 3 PCs are networked then there's a really good chance that the other two have been compromised as well and should be wiped fresh at the same time the main one is given a new start.
And as others have mentioned, use HijackThis and the support they can provide to find the cuplrit. Spybot S&D and a good AV program are two pieces of software I would highly recommend for everyone to have in their PC medical bag o' stuff.
Just curious, but why 3 different PCs to play one game anyway? Is he playing the gold farmer game on the side? That would potentially point to a bot program, which could then lead to his keylogger. Not saying he's doing but it's just something I considered while reading through the thread.
Why would Blizzard hack an account? Everything that's on it, they can create in bulk in less time than it would take to keylog you. Conspiracy theories are a great way of denying responsibility. Chances are the account was used to spam goldselling messages on the realms or the forums and that is an easy spot of a hacked account. It's good the person who spotted it realised the account was hacked and not just violating policy. Otherwise it might have been a ban instead, with the onus on your friend to prove it wasn't him who did whatever it was that was done on the account.
Addons may not be the cause but Addon sites can very well be. Keyloggers have been embedded in images and then placed on 'trusted' sites like Thottbot. Viewing can be enough to get infected.
The copy paste theory is flawed. Keyloggers are capable of picking up a password you wrote in notepad and then pasted into your WoW client. And of course, you still have to type it into notepad.
Blaming Blizzard is all very well but Blizzard had nothing to do with it. Blame the goldsellers who write and distribute the keyloggers, blame the goldbuyers who are creating the market that sustains it, and blame your friend for not taking enough care with his account. Blizzard are now his very best chance at getting his gear and account back. Being nice to them might be a smarter idea.
Ok so here is an update. For some reason he got his account back lastnight around 10:45pm that was the fastest he has ever gotten it back. The sad news is who ever hacked him took EVERYTHING. All his armor from all his toons, soul bound or not, they took it all, they left every toon naked as if they are newly made.
The most they left him with were 2 silver on each toon except on his lvl 70 which they left 6 gold out of thousands. He don't wanna play anymore, basically afraid if he works on getting everything back they will just take it again. Not sure if he will lvl another account fresh or just quit but honestly if I were him at this point I would quit.
I thought about what I would do if this happened to my toons now that I've invested so much time into them and honestly I can say I am 100% sure I would or will quit the first time this happens. Stuff like this is frustrating and you feel helpless because your not in front of the person to knock some teeth out, but w/e.
I feel bad for the guy, we have fun when we play and lately with new content its been pretty cool, oh well; guess things can't stay the same when playing games like this, you will always be at risk no matter what and thats just the plain reality of it all no matter how sad.
Ok so here is an update. For some reason he got his account back lastnight around 10:45pm that was the fastest he has ever gotten it back. The sad news is who ever hacked him took EVERYTHING. All his armor from all his toons, soul bound or not, they took it all, they left every toon naked as if they are newly made. The most they left him with were 2 silver on each toon except on his lvl 70 which they left 6 gold out of thousands. He don't wanna play anymore, basically afraid if he works on getting everything back they will just take it again. Not sure if he will lvl another account fresh or just quit but honestly if I were him at this point I would quit. I thought about what I would do if this happened to my toons now that I've invested so much time into them and honestly I can say I am 100% sure I would or will quit the first time this happens. Stuff like this is frustrating and you feel helpless because your not in front of the person to knock some teeth out, but w/e. I feel bad for the guy, we have fun when we play and lately with new content its been pretty cool, oh well; guess things can't stay the same when playing games like this, you will always be at risk no matter what and thats just the plain reality of it all no matter how sad.
He needs to contact Blizzard customer support and put in a ticket saying that his account has been hacked and that he would like his account rolled back to an earlier date. Just because he got the account back doesn't mean that Blizzard has attempted to recover the items he lost. In the mean time he should do all the things that people have mentioned here, change his WoW account password - make sure it's not one he's used before and tell no one what it is, reformat the harddrive, install an anti-virus/anti-spyware package and get a firewall, reinstall WoW from scratch, use WoW matrix to download and install add-ons (If WoW Matrix doesn't support an add-on, then I wouldn't use it). He should also do this on any other PC that he has networked together. If he uses a wireless network it should be secured.
Just be warned that since he's been hacked 4 times, obviously something is causing this issue. There's no way that any of us can know what that is. Unless he changes the way he does things, all of this will be for naught because he'll get hacked again. He needs to take a good hard look at what could be causing the issue. I know it's frustrating to get hacked, but he's got to quit thinking this is just bad luck and realize that somehow his account information is being compromised and only he should know what that information is, therefore only he can prevent it from happening again.
Ok so here is an update. For some reason he got his account back lastnight around 10:45pm that was the fastest he has ever gotten it back. The sad news is who ever hacked him took EVERYTHING. All his armor from all his toons, soul bound or not, they took it all, they left every toon naked as if they are newly made. The most they left him with were 2 silver on each toon except on his lvl 70 which they left 6 gold out of thousands. He don't wanna play anymore, basically afraid if he works on getting everything back they will just take it again. Not sure if he will lvl another account fresh or just quit but honestly if I were him at this point I would quit. I thought about what I would do if this happened to my toons now that I've invested so much time into them and honestly I can say I am 100% sure I would or will quit the first time this happens. Stuff like this is frustrating and you feel helpless because your not in front of the person to knock some teeth out, but w/e. I feel bad for the guy, we have fun when we play and lately with new content its been pretty cool, oh well; guess things can't stay the same when playing games like this, you will always be at risk no matter what and thats just the plain reality of it all no matter how sad.
Your friend needs to research how to keep his accounts safe and practice safe surfing habits instead of being concerned about his WoW account which is the easiest of his problems to fix. If he has been hacked 4 times then getting his gear back will just be a temporary fix until he does something stupid... again... and gets hacked... again. He needs to hit google and do just a little research on safe surfing habits.
Maybe next time it will be his back account or his online identity. Getting his gear back [which is easy] should be the least of his concerns.
Ok so here is an update. For some reason he got his account back lastnight around 10:45pm that was the fastest he has ever gotten it back. The sad news is who ever hacked him took EVERYTHING. All his armor from all his toons, soul bound or not, they took it all, they left every toon naked as if they are newly made. The most they left him with were 2 silver on each toon except on his lvl 70 which they left 6 gold out of thousands. He don't wanna play anymore, basically afraid if he works on getting everything back they will just take it again. Not sure if he will lvl another account fresh or just quit but honestly if I were him at this point I would quit. I thought about what I would do if this happened to my toons now that I've invested so much time into them and honestly I can say I am 100% sure I would or will quit the first time this happens. Stuff like this is frustrating and you feel helpless because your not in front of the person to knock some teeth out, but w/e. I feel bad for the guy, we have fun when we play and lately with new content its been pretty cool, oh well; guess things can't stay the same when playing games like this, you will always be at risk no matter what and thats just the plain reality of it all no matter how sad.
Your friend needs to research how to keep his accounts safe and practice safe surfing habits instead of being concerned about his WoW account which is the easiest of his problems to fix. If he has been hacked 4 times then getting his gear back will just be a temporary fix until he does something stupid... again... and gets hacked... again. He needs to hit google and do just a little research on safe surfing habits.
Maybe next time it will be his back account or his online identity. Getting his gear back [which is easy] should be the least of his concerns.
Well as far as his surfing habits I think I know this guy well enouph to say he is not a web surfer like that. Infact, My other friend and I got him into playing online games in the first place and I don't like to judge people but I don't see him as the "Surf dirty porn site" type. I know other sites he visits can contain loggers but he seems to be a "Check my email and play WoW" only type of guy, and maybe some banking. I think he has gotten himself in this trouble by downloading countless addons just to try em out then deleting them, maybe one of those were currupt. I told him to delete all addons and reinstall them through wowmatrix so he did that lastnight as well. He didn't say he will reformat again because he already did that once but I'll keep suggesting it. I'll be going to his part of the city later so I'll be able to do some stuff to his PC that was recomended here, maybe even reformat it myself if time permits.
He downloaded Wowmatrix but has not said he will get that key thing from blizzard yet but that would be a wise choice.
Pappy13, thanks for the info, I didn't know blizzard could roll back accounts, never thought they would. He will be happy to hear that, now it's keeping it safe after this is all done is the thing he needs to do.
Pappy13, thanks for the info, I didn't know blizzard could roll back accounts, never thought they would. He will be happy to hear that, now it's keeping it safe after this is all done is the thing he needs to do.
Just thought of one more thing he can do. Make sure that he uses the WoW launcher to start up the game and doesn't launch the game directly from the WoW executable. The WoW launcher is called launcher.exe and it's in the WoW folder.
When you start the game using the launcher, it checks the PC for programs that might be running that shouldn't be and will inform you if it finds any and won't start the game until you disable them. Just one more check to be sure you're safe. It starts up quite fast and is updated regularly (more often then the game itself) for the latest malware. I always use it. If you start the game directly from the WoW executable and it detects a cheat program running, it informs Blizzard and you run the risk of having your account banned. By starting from the launcher instead, it will just let you know that the cheat program is running and prevent you from starting WoW, saving you from a possible ban.
Originally posted by Scripture1 Well as far as his surfing habits I think I know this guy well enouph to say he is not a web surfer like that. Infact, My other friend and I got him into playing online games in the first place and I don't like to judge people but I don't see him as the "Surf dirty porn site" type. I know other sites he visits can contain loggers but he seems to be a "Check my email and play WoW" only type of guy, and maybe some banking. I think he has gotten himself in this trouble by downloading countless addons just to try em out then deleting them, maybe one of those were currupt. I told him to delete all addons and reinstall them through wowmatrix so he did that lastnight as well. He didn't say he will reformat again because he already did that once but I'll keep suggesting it. I'll be going to his part of the city later so I'll be able to do some stuff to his PC that was recomended here, maybe even reformat it myself if time permits. He downloaded Wowmatrix but has not said he will get that key thing from blizzard yet but that would be a wise choice.
Pappy13, thanks for the info, I didn't know blizzard could roll back accounts, never thought they would. He will be happy to hear that, now it's keeping it safe after this is all done is the thing he needs to do.
When I say bad surfing habits, I did not mean that in a moral sense of the word or anything related to porn. What I said has nothing to do with the choice of what online content he prefers to surf, but more about his lack of understand about what is dangerous to do and what isn't. Even reading email is very dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.
I think it is pretty clear he clicks things he shouldn't be and goes to sites that he shouldn't be going. He really needs to do a quick google search on "how to surf safely" and do some reading. It should only take him about 30 minutes and then he can make a few changes. Then he can read some more about how to clean his system if he has any technical abilities, which I doubt he does seeing all the wild speculations about who is hacking him.
Tip #1: Do not use outlook and related products, and do not use IE.
Tip #2: stop running all those little joke apps that people loved sending around for years, many of which contain trojans. Especially if you use outlook. Outlook seems to be designed around letting hackers do whatever they feel like to your system, for some stupid reason.
Tip #3: Chances are you are already infected with backdoors and trojans and whatnot, system is probably wide open. Time for a good format/reinstall of everything. Use a firewall/router device with NAT or something, not the crappy windows firewall software packages, those are iffy.
As an IT professional I can tell you that Norton is definitely not your best bet... it is fairly mediocre on detections and one of the worst for using system resources, has been since they released NAV 2003. They're pretty much coasting on their name right now. If your friend doesn't mind subscription fees, I'd strongly recommend Kaspersky Internet Security (next step up from Antivirus), it includes a firewall and intrusion detection and a slew of other features that'll lock down the computer pretty good. You mentioned he has three computers, if I remember correctly a 3-license subscription from Kaspersky works out to about twenty bucks per computer.
Strong passwords are always a good idea, even 8-character combinations of upper- and lowercase letters and numbers that don't contain dictionary words take a prohibitively long time to brute-force. Throwing symbols in the mix make it even harder. Regardless, it should be impossible to brute-force accounts on Blizz servers as they would likely catch on after about a dozen attempts. So that leads me to agree with the other posters that said he likely got a keylogger. I'm not saying he has or has not been to such sites, but as a coworker jokingly told me, "Web porn is for noobs." Porn sites are probably the worst offender for installing malicious content on people's computers. Some other likely sources of keyloggers include warez and crack sites on the web and "mainstream" file sharing programs such as Limewire and Kazaa. Your buddy should be avoiding these at all costs, if only for the horrendous number of mislabeled MP3s (LOL).
Your friend needs to do a few things to help stop himself from getting hacked.
Get mozilla firefox Download the noscripts addon Buy an account authenticator for $6.50. This will make it almost impossible for someone to hack his account by just keylogging his password. www.blizzard.com/store/details.xml Never click links in emails, ever. Open a brower and go to the website by typing in the URL A decent virus program helps a little but, I recommend AVG with rootkit.
That will not solve the problem he is having right now. Obviously he is doing something that is not safe. Either clicking dangerous links on websites/emails or just surfing to much porn. Mozilla with the noscripts will take care of most of his dangerous surfing habits as long as he does NOT disable noscripts. Anything short of a complete hard drive reformat is going to be guess work if it got rid of his problem. He might try downloading hijackthis from www.download.com and running a scan. Copy/paste that logfile in the textbox at hijackthis.de and it might find the keylogger(s) and other things. He might be better off just posting the hijackthis log on a help forum and asking for advice, because you can do some real damage if you don't know what you are doing.
Best $6.50 you'll ever spend. There is a potential of not being able to play a week if the battery dies while you are waiting for Blizzard to send you a new one, but that is a far cheaper price to pay than undoing what ever some hacker does to your account.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Well, he basically gave up as far as seems. I don't think he wants to play that account anymore because he thinks its a waste of time going through what it takes it retrieve and safe-guard it. He has another account with a 48 warlock. Wierd thing about that account is that it's on the same exact computers but has NEVER EVER been hacked and he likes to twink all his toons so there would be a lot for a hacker to get from that too. He doubts my suggestion of a keylogger because the other account he has, has never been hacked while someone keeps hacking this one. He feels if there was a logger then they would have hacked them all.
He has a point but I'm not sure how key loggers work so I can't say for sure.
Well, he basically gave up as far as seems. I don't think he wants to play that account anymore because he thinks its a waste of time going through what it takes it retrieve and safe-guard it. He has another account with a 48 warlock. Wierd thing about that account is that it's on the same exact computers but has NEVER EVER been hacked and he likes to twink all his toons so there would be a lot for a hacker to get from that too. He doubts my suggestion of a keylogger because the other account he has, has never been hacked while someone keeps hacking this one. He feels if there was a logger then they would have hacked them all. He has a point but I'm not sure how key loggers work so I can't say for sure.
Alright, I'm gonna go out on a limb and ask a dumb question. Did he perhaps purchase this account from another person? In other words is he not the original owner of the account that is getting hacked? Something you said earlier made me think that maybe this was the case, but I figured that if that was the case, it would be obvious how this account is being compromised.
Well, he basically gave up as far as seems. I don't think he wants to play that account anymore because he thinks its a waste of time going through what it takes it retrieve and safe-guard it. He has another account with a 48 warlock. Wierd thing about that account is that it's on the same exact computers but has NEVER EVER been hacked and he likes to twink all his toons so there would be a lot for a hacker to get from that too. He doubts my suggestion of a keylogger because the other account he has, has never been hacked while someone keeps hacking this one. He feels if there was a logger then they would have hacked them all. He has a point but I'm not sure how key loggers work so I can't say for sure.
Alright, I'm gonna go out on a limb and ask a dumb question. Did he perhaps purchase this account from another person? In other words is he not the original owner of the account that is getting hacked? Something you said earlier made me think that maybe this was the case, but I figured that if that was the case, it would be obvious how this account is being compromised.
Nah, I would have probably smacked him up-side his head by now for buying an account, I don't understand people that do things like that, why buy a game that has already been played is what I think.
I remember him starting this toon with my druid and my other druid friend, we all lvl'd together. After he got hacked the third time he went and bought new WoW disks and restarted another account after they told him he would have to wait, and so he wanted nothing to do with that account anymore, much like whats happening now. So now I think he wants to go back to his warlock account and throw away his 70 hunter account....sux. Honestly - I told him - I don't want to see him do it but if I were him I would have given up on that one a long time ago.
So yeah, he is the original owner of the account, I have many frustrating days playing trying to kill his hunter from the first day we started until we capped at 70......those bullets hurt.
Well, he basically gave up as far as seems. I don't think he wants to play that account anymore because he thinks its a waste of time going through what it takes it retrieve and safe-guard it. He has another account with a 48 warlock. Wierd thing about that account is that it's on the same exact computers but has NEVER EVER been hacked and he likes to twink all his toons so there would be a lot for a hacker to get from that too. He doubts my suggestion of a keylogger because the other account he has, has never been hacked while someone keeps hacking this one. He feels if there was a logger then they would have hacked them all. He has a point but I'm not sure how key loggers work so I can't say for sure.
Alright, I'm gonna go out on a limb and ask a dumb question. Did he perhaps purchase this account from another person? In other words is he not the original owner of the account that is getting hacked? Something you said earlier made me think that maybe this was the case, but I figured that if that was the case, it would be obvious how this account is being compromised.
Nah, I would have probably smacked him up-side his head by now for buying an account, I don't understand people that do things like that, why buy a game that has already been played is what I think.
I remember him starting this toon with my druid and my other druid friend, we all lvl'd together. After he got hacked the third time he went and bought new WoW disks and restarted another account after they told him he would have to wait, and so he wanted nothing to do with that account anymore, much like whats happening now. So now I think he wants to go back to his warlock account and throw away his 70 hunter account....sux. Honestly - I told him - I don't want to see him do it but if I were him I would have given up on that one a long time ago.
So yeah, he is the original owner of the account, I have many frustrating days playing trying to kill his hunter from the first day we started until we capped at 70......those bullets hurt.
Alright, how about this. Have Blizzard get his lvl 70 Hunter back and then have him move it over to his other account and close the account that keep's getting hacked. You can do that. There are some limitations, like you can't put a Horde and Alliance together on a PvP server, but it might work. I would suggest he looks into that option.
Alright, how about this. Have Blizzard get his lvl 70 Hunter back and then have him move it over to his other account and close the account that keep's getting hacked. You can do that. There are some limitations, like you can't put a Horde and Alliance together on a PvP server, but it might work. I would suggest he looks into that option.
This just keeps getting better, he can do that? wow I would have never thought they would be so liberal but heck yeah I'm gonna call him with that news right now. I wonder if they would let his 65 deathknight and 64 pld go too, since those are the ones he has on there that he really wants.
This kinda spells bad news for me cause I boasted and almost bragged that if he still had his pld I would banish it with my deathknight..... I do think I can but w/e.
This is great news and if he does transfer the toons the new account will be safe while the old is closed down so no more hackers....I hope, like we said earlier, your never truly 100% safe but you can make it harder for people to victimize you.
Comments
keylogger. if it has happened 4 times with changed passwords it has to be a keylogger.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
He's not reinstalling from a backup is he? He should install from the original CD's or download from the internet. Do NOT make a backup of anything and then bring it back from the backup after formatting the harddrive. The only thing that you should backup on your PC is your own content files, never backup program files or at least do not recover them from a backup if you think your PC has been compromised.
Yeah I asked him and he said the guys in the IT department from the company his wife works for gave her some kind of disk to clean his system completly and he reinstalled from the disk and not a backup. Infact he got so upset the third time this happened that he took all his WoW disks and snapped them in two, then cleaned the system and used the original backup CDs and re-installed. Needless to say he had to go back out and re-purchase th WoW disks after we convinced him not to quit.
Don't tell him this, but he didn't have to do that. You actually don't need the disks for anything, all you need is the key. You can download the client straight from Blizzard's website if you have your account info....oops.
LOL! yeah I won't tell him that now. He may really get a case of the quits.
About going to bestbuy, I was going to go to try and find the AV program you all were talking about but I just realized that I can, get that for him on the website.
Thanks!
Mods by their very nature are safe, there is no account hacking abilities in mods and they are just scripts that don't even run until the game is loaded. The problem is that people download files they think are mods and run executable programs that install viruses.
This is exactly why you would want to use WoW Matrix. WoW Matrix guarantees that the files you are downloading are NOT viruses. It only downloads the files from official sources and scans the files for viruses and/or keyloggers. With this little tool you don't have to go to searching all over the web for your add-ons, it's already done it for you. On top of that it guarantees you have the latest version and it automatically installs all the add-ons for you, you NEVER run an executable to install addons. The only executable you ever run is WoW Matrix itself. WoW Matrix has been tested by CNET's download.com and certified that it doesn't contain any malware. I have been using it for months without incident. You're much more likely to get a virus/keylogger searching all over the internet for the latest update for your addons then getting one from using WoW Matrix. Read the following from WoW Matrix's website and from CNET's Download.com and see what you think.
http://www.wowmatrix.com/safe-computing.html
http://www.download.com/WowMatrix-WoW-Addon-Updater/3000-2121_4-10759558.html
Just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Your friend is not invulnerable to getting a keylogger. There is no magic disk that ensures his system is clean. Blizzard isn't hacking his accounts and xfire didn't download a keylogger on his system.
Honestly if all he wants to do is try to figure out ways to blame everyone but himself, he will never find out the problem and thus never fix it. Either beat him upside the head with a heavy object or give up on him. After getting hacked 4 times it is safe to say that blaming other people isn't going to solve his issues.
There are no perfect programs. All virus checkers miss viruses. All programs have errors, flaws and bugs and report false positives. There is no magic disk that will make your bulletproof. If a hacker sets their sites on circumventing this program, odds are they will find a way.
Maybe the program is the bees knees, but you are essentially taking control of your computer and putting it into the hands of some automated program that can fail to do its intended purpose. If you know how to extract files from a .zip file and put them in the correct directory there is no need to every worry about malicious files.
Get good antivirus software such as avast!.
Type your password in text file and copy and pass it into the password box each time you login (keyloggers usually cant read the clipboard).
Use a strong password with atleast 2 numbers and doesn't contain any info such as your DoB, name, etc.
Not sure if blizzard can but you can request to get your account name changed.
Not visiting malicious sites for porn, hacks, etc etc also helps. eh
Your friend should thank the Gaming-Gods, get the hint, quit WoW forever and play a real game.
Hacked 4 times, that sounds like his fault. Using programs to try and bot or using addons that have keyloggers imbedded in them.
I played and still do from time to time and my account has never been hacked. I started when WoW first came out and up to the latest expansion off and on.
Most if not all the hacking problem going on in WoW is due to USER ERROR (aka using programs to bot with, using addons that are unproven and probably have a keylogger imbedded in them).
There is no possible way for people to keylogger through an addon.
People downloading files that have viruses in them that are labeled as addons is why people think addons can keylog. Even then the virus isn't installed until someone clicks on a .EXE file or some installer, which no addon should ever require.
Addons are perfectly safe, it is users that are dangerous.
As one who has was hacked shortly after my roommate was hacked twice, I feel his frustration. Just tell him to spend the 7 bucks plus shipping and get that Blizzard key code authenticator and all his worries will be gone.
And it does sound like he's got some other keylogger issues to work out too. If his 3 PCs are networked then there's a really good chance that the other two have been compromised as well and should be wiped fresh at the same time the main one is given a new start.
And as others have mentioned, use HijackThis and the support they can provide to find the cuplrit. Spybot S&D and a good AV program are two pieces of software I would highly recommend for everyone to have in their PC medical bag o' stuff.
Just curious, but why 3 different PCs to play one game anyway? Is he playing the gold farmer game on the side? That would potentially point to a bot program, which could then lead to his keylogger. Not saying he's doing but it's just something I considered while reading through the thread.
Why would Blizzard hack an account? Everything that's on it, they can create in bulk in less time than it would take to keylog you. Conspiracy theories are a great way of denying responsibility. Chances are the account was used to spam goldselling messages on the realms or the forums and that is an easy spot of a hacked account. It's good the person who spotted it realised the account was hacked and not just violating policy. Otherwise it might have been a ban instead, with the onus on your friend to prove it wasn't him who did whatever it was that was done on the account.
Addons may not be the cause but Addon sites can very well be. Keyloggers have been embedded in images and then placed on 'trusted' sites like Thottbot. Viewing can be enough to get infected.
The copy paste theory is flawed. Keyloggers are capable of picking up a password you wrote in notepad and then pasted into your WoW client. And of course, you still have to type it into notepad.
Blaming Blizzard is all very well but Blizzard had nothing to do with it. Blame the goldsellers who write and distribute the keyloggers, blame the goldbuyers who are creating the market that sustains it, and blame your friend for not taking enough care with his account. Blizzard are now his very best chance at getting his gear and account back. Being nice to them might be a smarter idea.
Ok so here is an update. For some reason he got his account back lastnight around 10:45pm that was the fastest he has ever gotten it back. The sad news is who ever hacked him took EVERYTHING. All his armor from all his toons, soul bound or not, they took it all, they left every toon naked as if they are newly made.
The most they left him with were 2 silver on each toon except on his lvl 70 which they left 6 gold out of thousands. He don't wanna play anymore, basically afraid if he works on getting everything back they will just take it again. Not sure if he will lvl another account fresh or just quit but honestly if I were him at this point I would quit.
I thought about what I would do if this happened to my toons now that I've invested so much time into them and honestly I can say I am 100% sure I would or will quit the first time this happens. Stuff like this is frustrating and you feel helpless because your not in front of the person to knock some teeth out, but w/e.
I feel bad for the guy, we have fun when we play and lately with new content its been pretty cool, oh well; guess things can't stay the same when playing games like this, you will always be at risk no matter what and thats just the plain reality of it all no matter how sad.
He needs to contact Blizzard customer support and put in a ticket saying that his account has been hacked and that he would like his account rolled back to an earlier date. Just because he got the account back doesn't mean that Blizzard has attempted to recover the items he lost. In the mean time he should do all the things that people have mentioned here, change his WoW account password - make sure it's not one he's used before and tell no one what it is, reformat the harddrive, install an anti-virus/anti-spyware package and get a firewall, reinstall WoW from scratch, use WoW matrix to download and install add-ons (If WoW Matrix doesn't support an add-on, then I wouldn't use it). He should also do this on any other PC that he has networked together. If he uses a wireless network it should be secured.
Just be warned that since he's been hacked 4 times, obviously something is causing this issue. There's no way that any of us can know what that is. Unless he changes the way he does things, all of this will be for naught because he'll get hacked again. He needs to take a good hard look at what could be causing the issue. I know it's frustrating to get hacked, but he's got to quit thinking this is just bad luck and realize that somehow his account information is being compromised and only he should know what that information is, therefore only he can prevent it from happening again.
Your friend needs to research how to keep his accounts safe and practice safe surfing habits instead of being concerned about his WoW account which is the easiest of his problems to fix. If he has been hacked 4 times then getting his gear back will just be a temporary fix until he does something stupid... again... and gets hacked... again. He needs to hit google and do just a little research on safe surfing habits.
Maybe next time it will be his back account or his online identity. Getting his gear back [which is easy] should be the least of his concerns.
Your friend needs to research how to keep his accounts safe and practice safe surfing habits instead of being concerned about his WoW account which is the easiest of his problems to fix. If he has been hacked 4 times then getting his gear back will just be a temporary fix until he does something stupid... again... and gets hacked... again. He needs to hit google and do just a little research on safe surfing habits.
Maybe next time it will be his back account or his online identity. Getting his gear back [which is easy] should be the least of his concerns.
Well as far as his surfing habits I think I know this guy well enouph to say he is not a web surfer like that. Infact, My other friend and I got him into playing online games in the first place and I don't like to judge people but I don't see him as the "Surf dirty porn site" type. I know other sites he visits can contain loggers but he seems to be a "Check my email and play WoW" only type of guy, and maybe some banking. I think he has gotten himself in this trouble by downloading countless addons just to try em out then deleting them, maybe one of those were currupt. I told him to delete all addons and reinstall them through wowmatrix so he did that lastnight as well. He didn't say he will reformat again because he already did that once but I'll keep suggesting it. I'll be going to his part of the city later so I'll be able to do some stuff to his PC that was recomended here, maybe even reformat it myself if time permits.
He downloaded Wowmatrix but has not said he will get that key thing from blizzard yet but that would be a wise choice.
Pappy13, thanks for the info, I didn't know blizzard could roll back accounts, never thought they would. He will be happy to hear that, now it's keeping it safe after this is all done is the thing he needs to do.
Just thought of one more thing he can do. Make sure that he uses the WoW launcher to start up the game and doesn't launch the game directly from the WoW executable. The WoW launcher is called launcher.exe and it's in the WoW folder.
When you start the game using the launcher, it checks the PC for programs that might be running that shouldn't be and will inform you if it finds any and won't start the game until you disable them. Just one more check to be sure you're safe. It starts up quite fast and is updated regularly (more often then the game itself) for the latest malware. I always use it. If you start the game directly from the WoW executable and it detects a cheat program running, it informs Blizzard and you run the risk of having your account banned. By starting from the launcher instead, it will just let you know that the cheat program is running and prevent you from starting WoW, saving you from a possible ban.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/misc/launcher.html
When I say bad surfing habits, I did not mean that in a moral sense of the word or anything related to porn. What I said has nothing to do with the choice of what online content he prefers to surf, but more about his lack of understand about what is dangerous to do and what isn't. Even reading email is very dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.
I think it is pretty clear he clicks things he shouldn't be and goes to sites that he shouldn't be going. He really needs to do a quick google search on "how to surf safely" and do some reading. It should only take him about 30 minutes and then he can make a few changes. Then he can read some more about how to clean his system if he has any technical abilities, which I doubt he does seeing all the wild speculations about who is hacking him.
Tip #1: Do not use outlook and related products, and do not use IE.
Tip #2: stop running all those little joke apps that people loved sending around for years, many of which contain trojans. Especially if you use outlook. Outlook seems to be designed around letting hackers do whatever they feel like to your system, for some stupid reason.
Tip #3: Chances are you are already infected with backdoors and trojans and whatnot, system is probably wide open. Time for a good format/reinstall of everything. Use a firewall/router device with NAT or something, not the crappy windows firewall software packages, those are iffy.
As an IT professional I can tell you that Norton is definitely not your best bet... it is fairly mediocre on detections and one of the worst for using system resources, has been since they released NAV 2003. They're pretty much coasting on their name right now. If your friend doesn't mind subscription fees, I'd strongly recommend Kaspersky Internet Security (next step up from Antivirus), it includes a firewall and intrusion detection and a slew of other features that'll lock down the computer pretty good. You mentioned he has three computers, if I remember correctly a 3-license subscription from Kaspersky works out to about twenty bucks per computer.
Strong passwords are always a good idea, even 8-character combinations of upper- and lowercase letters and numbers that don't contain dictionary words take a prohibitively long time to brute-force. Throwing symbols in the mix make it even harder. Regardless, it should be impossible to brute-force accounts on Blizz servers as they would likely catch on after about a dozen attempts. So that leads me to agree with the other posters that said he likely got a keylogger. I'm not saying he has or has not been to such sites, but as a coworker jokingly told me, "Web porn is for noobs." Porn sites are probably the worst offender for installing malicious content on people's computers. Some other likely sources of keyloggers include warez and crack sites on the web and "mainstream" file sharing programs such as Limewire and Kazaa. Your buddy should be avoiding these at all costs, if only for the horrendous number of mislabeled MP3s (LOL).
Best $6.50 you'll ever spend. There is a potential of not being able to play a week if the battery dies while you are waiting for Blizzard to send you a new one, but that is a far cheaper price to pay than undoing what ever some hacker does to your account.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Well, he basically gave up as far as seems. I don't think he wants to play that account anymore because he thinks its a waste of time going through what it takes it retrieve and safe-guard it. He has another account with a 48 warlock. Wierd thing about that account is that it's on the same exact computers but has NEVER EVER been hacked and he likes to twink all his toons so there would be a lot for a hacker to get from that too. He doubts my suggestion of a keylogger because the other account he has, has never been hacked while someone keeps hacking this one. He feels if there was a logger then they would have hacked them all.
He has a point but I'm not sure how key loggers work so I can't say for sure.
Alright, I'm gonna go out on a limb and ask a dumb question. Did he perhaps purchase this account from another person? In other words is he not the original owner of the account that is getting hacked? Something you said earlier made me think that maybe this was the case, but I figured that if that was the case, it would be obvious how this account is being compromised.
Alright, I'm gonna go out on a limb and ask a dumb question. Did he perhaps purchase this account from another person? In other words is he not the original owner of the account that is getting hacked? Something you said earlier made me think that maybe this was the case, but I figured that if that was the case, it would be obvious how this account is being compromised.
Nah, I would have probably smacked him up-side his head by now for buying an account, I don't understand people that do things like that, why buy a game that has already been played is what I think.
I remember him starting this toon with my druid and my other druid friend, we all lvl'd together. After he got hacked the third time he went and bought new WoW disks and restarted another account after they told him he would have to wait, and so he wanted nothing to do with that account anymore, much like whats happening now. So now I think he wants to go back to his warlock account and throw away his 70 hunter account....sux. Honestly - I told him - I don't want to see him do it but if I were him I would have given up on that one a long time ago.
So yeah, he is the original owner of the account, I have many frustrating days playing trying to kill his hunter from the first day we started until we capped at 70......those bullets hurt.
Alright, I'm gonna go out on a limb and ask a dumb question. Did he perhaps purchase this account from another person? In other words is he not the original owner of the account that is getting hacked? Something you said earlier made me think that maybe this was the case, but I figured that if that was the case, it would be obvious how this account is being compromised.
Nah, I would have probably smacked him up-side his head by now for buying an account, I don't understand people that do things like that, why buy a game that has already been played is what I think.
I remember him starting this toon with my druid and my other druid friend, we all lvl'd together. After he got hacked the third time he went and bought new WoW disks and restarted another account after they told him he would have to wait, and so he wanted nothing to do with that account anymore, much like whats happening now. So now I think he wants to go back to his warlock account and throw away his 70 hunter account....sux. Honestly - I told him - I don't want to see him do it but if I were him I would have given up on that one a long time ago.
So yeah, he is the original owner of the account, I have many frustrating days playing trying to kill his hunter from the first day we started until we capped at 70......those bullets hurt.
Alright, how about this. Have Blizzard get his lvl 70 Hunter back and then have him move it over to his other account and close the account that keep's getting hacked. You can do that. There are some limitations, like you can't put a Horde and Alliance together on a PvP server, but it might work. I would suggest he looks into that option.
This just keeps getting better, he can do that? wow I would have never thought they would be so liberal but heck yeah I'm gonna call him with that news right now. I wonder if they would let his 65 deathknight and 64 pld go too, since those are the ones he has on there that he really wants.
This kinda spells bad news for me cause I boasted and almost bragged that if he still had his pld I would banish it with my deathknight..... I do think I can but w/e.
This is great news and if he does transfer the toons the new account will be safe while the old is closed down so no more hackers....I hope, like we said earlier, your never truly 100% safe but you can make it harder for people to victimize you.