The best piece of advice someone gave me right before I joined, was to link your account to a unique email address, and use a complex password (mix of numbers, upper and lower case). Also, if using Firefox (why wouldn't you be??) install ad-blocker and noscript addons, as well as ensuring all your malware and antivirus software is up-to-date. We still don't know for sure how people are getting their accounts compromised, but its likely that they have tied the same email address to their Blizzard/ fan-sites as well as Trion's account management.
This is what I do to make sure my account doesn't get "hacked" or "compromised". I make sure I use a unique email with unique and complex password. I have had my ccount hacked in WoW and it was a pain to get what I lost back. I never did. Blizzaerd never personally replied but I had to go through the motions to get my account back. I now take the correct precautions to make sure it doesn't happen again. I sure hope it wont in this game...
Just in case I'm reading that wrong, I was never hacked personally.
The zam site may be one source. But I am not sure it is the only source...
It's not just Zam, it's any Rift fansite that has 3rd party ads. They are all a potential source for hackers to serve infected ads to you, and if you're not running the proper protection, you'll get infected.
If fact, this is an issue for any MMO with sites that have 3rd party ads. Hell, even the WoW forums had gold seller and virii infected ads for a brief period after they added banner ads to their official forums.
The other two sources are people downloading and using un-approved 3rd partry damage parsers, and lastly, is people having their account info phished.
Really, you should probably educate your self a bit more on the pitfalls of Windows if you truly think your practices make your computer a "fortress of safety".
"WINDOWS IS UNSAFE WHEEWAWHEEWAW"
About the only thing safer is Linux. If any of you says Apple, you're an idiot. Apple has backdoors, they're just not exploited because most people cannot be arsed.
In the hacker contest a couple days ago...Safari and OSX got hacked in 5 seconds.
In most of the sponsored security events (def con, etc) Apple computers are usually the first to be breached. It is Unix after all, which means if you know root commands you can easily bring a Mac product to its iknees....
There are 3 types of people in the world. 1.) Those who make things happen 2.) Those who watch things happen 3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Oh noes, blizzards influence of selling account info to gold farmers is SPREADING TO TRION
lol.
Give me a break! Never ever had an account "hacked" in any game I've played.
ok this might sound crazy, but I had this theory back in my WoW days:
1. You unsub from WoW
2. A mystery employee at Blizzard processes the unsub and copies the info
3. Info gets forwarded to IGE or IGXE via underground network
4. Employee gets under the table money for provided info
5. Account gets sold after being stripped
6. 12 has million subs!
Not that far fetched you can be 1000% sure blizzard has employees who have been paid off by the gold farmers it would be silly to think they don't you have dirty lawyers,policeman,politicians,there is NO way there isn't some dirty who are gms for these games,
Not that far fetched you can be 1000% sure blizzard has employees who have been paid off by the gold farmers it would be silly to think they don't you have dirty lawyers,policeman,politicians,there is NO way there isn't some dirty who are gms for these games,
You might say..ohhh Puremallace you are just crazy. Like many of you I got bored in WoW, so I started talking to one of these guys to mess with them.
This guy was a college student I think in China somewhere. These guys have INTEMENT and I mean detailed information of when certain area's and which servers are being checked.
They also know the EXACT amounts of kinah x-fer that will trigger the background secruity feature to investigate an account. Unless they are just super duper smart they definitely got an insider.
I have been in online games since 1998 (if you count online chess has one) and I never... ever been hacked on a game or service. Maybe I have just been lucky or maybe you guys just joined bad websites or gave your info easily to anyone.
And the WoW theory... I won't say it is a lie, but won't say it is true, because I don't un-suscribe my credit cards... I use game cards. That way, no dev will track me if I have been playing the game or left the game since I don't put game cards one after another. Sometimes I give 2 days-3 days off just not to make me a "regular" client.
I see a universe where unicorns fly... and my mother-in-law is in a grave at last. |BEST UNIVERSE EVA AWARD|
Oh noes, blizzards influence of selling account info to gold farmers is SPREADING TO TRION
lol.
Give me a break! Never ever had an account "hacked" in any game I've played.
ok this might sound crazy, but I had this theory back in my WoW days:
1. You unsub from WoW
2. A mystery employee at Blizzard processes the unsub and copies the info
3. Info gets forwarded to IGE or IGXE via underground network
4. Employee gets under the table money for provided info
5. Account gets sold after being stripped
6. 12 has million subs!
Not that far fetched you can be 1000% sure blizzard has employees who have been paid off by the gold farmers it would be silly to think they don't you have dirty lawyers,policeman,politicians,there is NO way there isn't some dirty who are gms for these games,
Not impossible, but alas, such an insider is not required. See my post above.
Besides, that info is accessible to far fewer people than you might suspect. You know the reason why you see messages saying "a game employee will NEVER ask for your password info"? Because they don't WANT those employees to know it. So they use different methods for verifying your ID; usually through CC verification or Q&A. That's also why most games will RESET your password instead of giving it to you.
I know one thing for sure. If Trion wanted to make a qucik 10$ off every single person playing the game right now they would release an authenticator.
Authenticator would idiot proof some of these people's machines
And/or create an app. Getting hacked is a horrible experience for a player, so spending some cash out of their own pocket to build an app would be in their best interest.
I'd be interested to see how much money they Blizzard makes off the authenticators. I can only speculate, but I'd wager it's not exactly a cash cow.
This made me LOL...... Really, you should probably educate your self a bit more on the pitfalls of Windows if you truly think your practices make your computer a "fortress of safety".
"WINDOWS IS UNSAFE WHEEWAWHEEWAW"
About the only thing safer is Linux. If any of you says Apple, you're an idiot. Apple has backdoors, they're just not exploited because most people cannot be arsed.
I said nothing about OSX only pointing out that you got hacked...not a breech of Trions account database. MS Security Essentials and a few firefox addons do not magically make windows a bastion of safety. Real world knowledge of how Windows works and some smart habits to use with all of you're Internet activity will give you much more protection
People are quick to shift the blame elsewhere. They don't want to admit that their precious account was compromised due to their sloppy Internet practices.
Sure Trions servers could have been breeched. In reality it would not have been nearly as easy as infecting Trions customers highly unprotected PCs. They obtain more than enough accounts for their needs by doing this, it's just flat out easier, and it brings less attention to the companies actually hacking the accounts.
What are you gonna do next? Claim it was Bigfoot? Or suck it up and realize your PC isn't a fortress of security.
Blame the chinese. Currently most of the hacking, keylogging, gold selling and account stealing is coming out of China. Literally they perform a form of mmo terrorism and the problem is the Chinese government is doing nothing to stop them. It is perhaps the biggest and most dangerous factor to the mmorpg industries health and welbeing. The people behind these organizations have literally no moral or ethical code.
Originally posted by fyerwall Originally posted by daelnor
Originally posted by TheFarseer
Originally posted by Kilrane
This made me LOL...... Really, you should probably educate your self a bit more on the pitfalls of Windows if you truly think your practices make your computer a "fortress of safety".
"WINDOWS IS UNSAFE WHEEWAWHEEWAW" About the only thing safer is Linux. If any of you says Apple, you're an idiot. Apple has backdoors, they're just not exploited because most people cannot be arsed. In the hacker contest a couple days ago...Safari and OSX got hacked in 5 seconds. In most of the sponsored security events (def con, etc) Apple computers are usually the first to be breached. It is Unix after all, which means if you know root commands you can easily bring a Mac product to its iknees....
OS X is a Mach Kernel with some BSD thrown in. It's not Unix. I remember reading an article where Linus Torvaldes (spelling might be wrong there) was criticizing it for being insecure.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There are some things that you can do to protect yourself:
1.) No matter what, never click on a link in an email from Trion (or any dev company). Odds are that whatever is mentioned in the email will be linked from the front page. Always load the website manually. If it's a comment about your account then all the more reason to load the front page of the website yourself and log in normally.
Phishing is likely at the top of the reasons why so many accounts are being stolen.
2.) Change your email address that you use to sign into the game. Create a new Yahoo / Hotmail / GMail / FastMail / etc account to do this if you need to.
3.) NEVER use your game account's email address to register at game sites. It's a pain to take this extra step, but it pays off.
4.) Run anti-virus software. Preferably use AV that makes use of what is called "sand boxing". Basically, this is a virtual environment that is created and erased as needed, preventing trojans from taking root in your 'real' system.
5.) Create a secure password. Mix upper-case, lower-case and numbers and do not use them to spell a word (aka "leet speak"). Copy / pasting the password from a text file is a small thing compared to losing your account due to a simple password.
6.) Use Chrome 10. Flash, as we know, is used to distribute malware. Advertisement networks have been used to drop infections via flash. Chrome 10 now automatically sand boxes Flash. More information here about that. Basically, a compromised bit of Flash is highly unlikely to affect your system beyond the virtual environment that's created by the Chrome browser.
Note that Chrome supports a wide range of popular plugins. It's quite possible that it supports your favorite Firefox extension, or something similar to it. The biggest negative against it - in my opinion - is that its native support for Greasemonkey scripts is pretty iffy.
Lastly, for the truly paranoid, if you use Avast Internet Security then you now have something called a "Safe Zone". This is like "sand boxing", but it creates an entire protected desktop environment that is dedicated to a customized Chromium browser. The environment is sealed off from the rest of the system - it can't interact with your system and your system can't interact with it.
I said nothing about OSX only pointing out that you got hacked...not a breech of Trions account database. MS Security Essentials and a few firefox addons do not magically make windows a bastion of safety. Real world knowledge of how Windows works and some smart habits to use with all of you're Internet activity will give you much more protection People are quick to shift the blame elsewhere. They don't want to admit that their precious account was compromised due to their sloppy Internet practices. Sure Trions servers could have been breeched. In reality it would not have been nearly as easy as infecting Trions customers highly unprotected PCs. They obtain more than enough accounts for their needs by doing this, it's just flat out easier, and it brings less attention to the companies actually hacking the accounts. What are you gonna do next? Claim it was Bigfoot? Or suck it up and realize your PC isn't a fortress of security.
The only site I can think of that could've fucked me over is Allakhazam, to be honest.
Anyway, they've openly admitted their account system is vulnerable to bruteforcing, so eh.
Apart of me is inclined to think this is the work of some concentrated effort.. Probably a handcrafted "instruction of ease" that any hack noob could use (like hacking Combat Arms) and it has probably gone viral..
Another part of me doesn't believe that it could be THAT easy though.. because seriously, if someone was keylogging, why would they just do it for Rift? If they know your password and email, they could get into your actual account information on Trion's site and cancel your sub, and even clear your billing info.. They could change your password and lock you out of your own account..
No one has had their account completely ripped in half? Either these hackers actually have a heart and a conscience, or the tool they are using is extremely limited in its use..
Blame the chinese. Currently most of the hacking, keylogging, gold selling and account stealing is coming out of China. Literally they perform a form of mmo terrorism and the problem is the Chinese government is doing nothing to stop them. It is perhaps the biggest and most dangerous factor to the mmorpg industries health and welbeing. The people behind these organizations have literally no moral or ethical code.
What you don't know is that the major hackers aren't actually chinese, but Portuguese... but they don't show up like the chinese since they don't need to make "mmo terrorist"... they can earn ALOT more doing other illegal things. Every hacking community/organization haves a Portuguese on the top chains. It is proven that, in each mile square or metter square, there are more hackers in Portugal than all the countries in the world. They are just too sneaky and international.
I see a universe where unicorns fly... and my mother-in-law is in a grave at last. |BEST UNIVERSE EVA AWARD|
Statement: Script kiddies are not hackers. Script kiddies are talentless children who use other peoples software and programs.
Confused Query: Why is it only MMO gamers suffer from game account hacking issues outside of all the other games out there?
Statement: Simple. Because MMO accounts are worth money to people while an account for other non-MMO games are worth nothing more than generally the price of the game itself or less. While MMO accounts can reach up to the 100's + range, depending upon the accounts data. Such as levels, loot, and so forth.
Statement: In order to not fall prey to idiots, you yourself must have common sense enough to regularly monitor and take care of your account. Such as regular password changes, and not checking fake emails in your email account. Typically companies will not message you about your account information because they already have all your information on their end. Also remember to also not use direct payment such as a debit or credit card. Use other payment sources such as paypal and other means so your information is not taken and used against you.
The More You Know, meatbags.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
There are some things that you can do to protect yourself:
1.) No matter what, never click on a link in an email from Trion (or any dev company). Odds are that whatever is mentioned in the email will be linked from the front page. Always load the website manually. If it's a comment about your account then all the more reason to load the front page of the website yourself and log in normally.
Phishing is likely at the top of the reasons why so many accounts are being stolen.
2.) Change your email address that you use to sign into the game. Create a new Yahoo / Hotmail / GMail / FastMail / etc account to do this if you need to.
3.) NEVER use your game account's email address to register at game sites. It's a pain to take this extra step, but it pays off.
4.) Run anti-virus software. Preferably use AV that makes use of what is called "sand boxing". Basically, this is a virtual environment that is created and erased as needed, preventing trojans from taking root in your 'real' system.
5.) Create a secure password. Mix upper-case, lower-case and numbers and do not use them to spell a word (aka "leet speak"). Copy / pasting the password from a text file is a small thing compared to losing your account due to a simple password.
6.) Use Chrome 10. Flash, as we know, is used to distribute malware. Advertisement networks have been used to drop infections via flash. Chrome 10 now automatically sand boxes Flash. More information here about that. Basically, a compromised bit of Flash is highly unlikely to affect your system beyond the virtual environment that's created by the Chrome browser.
Note that Chrome supports a wide range of popular plugins. It's quite possible that it supports your favorite Firefox extension, or something similar to it. The biggest negative against it - in my opinion - is that its native support for Greasemonkey scripts is pretty iffy.
Lastly, for the truly paranoid, if you use Avast Internet Security then you now have something called a "Safe Zone". This is like "sand boxing", but it creates an entire protected desktop environment that is dedicated to a customized Chromium browser. The environment is sealed off from the rest of the system - it can't interact with your system and your system can't interact with it.
Good luck.
7.) If you didn't go to a website/webpage to download a file, don't download the file. If it pops up on you that you need to download something, say divx.. go to divx's website, or for flash, adobe's website, etc etc.
If you can do that, you can eliminate so much risk.
8.) Facebook - don't join every app that looks like it does something cool. A lot of the stuff passed around facebook doesn't "work" (though it does exactly what the creator intended) and people never bother/don't care to uninstall it.
9.) Don't torrent. Just don't. You're asking for it when you download one of those files.
10.) Use Chrome 10. I know this guy already brought it up but it is worth restating. Simplicity is security . Chrome runs better and faster and every program and its mother doesn't try to install a toolbar for it. I'm cleaning out my friend's computer to sell it and I started IE the other day to find it had 5 different toolbars programs like yahoo had snuck in.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Comments
This is what I do to make sure my account doesn't get "hacked" or "compromised". I make sure I use a unique email with unique and complex password. I have had my ccount hacked in WoW and it was a pain to get what I lost back. I never did. Blizzaerd never personally replied but I had to go through the motions to get my account back. I now take the correct precautions to make sure it doesn't happen again. I sure hope it wont in this game...
It's not just Zam, it's any Rift fansite that has 3rd party ads. They are all a potential source for hackers to serve infected ads to you, and if you're not running the proper protection, you'll get infected.
If fact, this is an issue for any MMO with sites that have 3rd party ads. Hell, even the WoW forums had gold seller and virii infected ads for a brief period after they added banner ads to their official forums.
The other two sources are people downloading and using un-approved 3rd partry damage parsers, and lastly, is people having their account info phished.
In most of the sponsored security events (def con, etc) Apple computers are usually the first to be breached. It is Unix after all, which means if you know root commands you can easily bring a Mac product to its iknees....
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
So Trion is going to give everyone more platinyum. Hmmm, maybe I should join while the cake is hot, and get me a piece.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
I know one thing for sure. If Trion wanted to make a qucik 10$ off every single person playing the game right now they would release an authenticator.
Authenticator would idiot proof some of these people's machines
Oh noes, blizzards influence of selling account info to gold farmers is SPREADING TO TRION
lol.
Give me a break! Never ever had an account "hacked" in any game I've played.
ok this might sound crazy, but I had this theory back in my WoW days:
1. You unsub from WoW
2. A mystery employee at Blizzard processes the unsub and copies the info
3. Info gets forwarded to IGE or IGXE via underground network
4. Employee gets under the table money for provided info
5. Account gets sold after being stripped
6. 12 has million subs!
Not that far fetched you can be 1000% sure blizzard has employees who have been paid off by the gold farmers it would be silly to think they don't you have dirty lawyers,policeman,politicians,there is NO way there isn't some dirty who are gms for these games,
You might say..ohhh Puremallace you are just crazy. Like many of you I got bored in WoW, so I started talking to one of these guys to mess with them.
This guy was a college student I think in China somewhere. These guys have INTEMENT and I mean detailed information of when certain area's and which servers are being checked.
They also know the EXACT amounts of kinah x-fer that will trigger the background secruity feature to investigate an account. Unless they are just super duper smart they definitely got an insider.
I've apparently completely missed the post where you explain the correlation.
Anyway, back OT.
Have you:
1. Joined a fan site, recently? A new forum? Anything pertaining to Rift or MMO's, in general?
2. used the same username/email password combination for ANY of those sites that you use for Rift?
If yes to both those questions, then chances are, those sites were hacked for your U/P combination and then used in Rift.
The admins of those sites may or may not have been involved.
I have been in online games since 1998 (if you count online chess has one) and I never... ever been hacked on a game or service. Maybe I have just been lucky or maybe you guys just joined bad websites or gave your info easily to anyone.
And the WoW theory... I won't say it is a lie, but won't say it is true, because I don't un-suscribe my credit cards... I use game cards. That way, no dev will track me if I have been playing the game or left the game since I don't put game cards one after another. Sometimes I give 2 days-3 days off just not to make me a "regular" client.
I see a universe where unicorns fly... and my mother-in-law is in a grave at last.
|BEST UNIVERSE EVA AWARD|
Not impossible, but alas, such an insider is not required. See my post above.
Besides, that info is accessible to far fewer people than you might suspect. You know the reason why you see messages saying "a game employee will NEVER ask for your password info"? Because they don't WANT those employees to know it. So they use different methods for verifying your ID; usually through CC verification or Q&A. That's also why most games will RESET your password instead of giving it to you.
And/or create an app. Getting hacked is a horrible experience for a player, so spending some cash out of their own pocket to build an app would be in their best interest.
I'd be interested to see how much money they Blizzard makes off the authenticators. I can only speculate, but I'd wager it's not exactly a cash cow.
"WINDOWS IS UNSAFE WHEEWAWHEEWAW"
About the only thing safer is Linux. If any of you says Apple, you're an idiot. Apple has backdoors, they're just not exploited because most people cannot be arsed.
I said nothing about OSX only pointing out that you got hacked...not a breech of Trions account database. MS Security Essentials and a few firefox addons do not magically make windows a bastion of safety. Real world knowledge of how Windows works and some smart habits to use with all of you're Internet activity will give you much more protectionPeople are quick to shift the blame elsewhere. They don't want to admit that their precious account was compromised due to their sloppy Internet practices.
Sure Trions servers could have been breeched. In reality it would not have been nearly as easy as infecting Trions customers highly unprotected PCs. They obtain more than enough accounts for their needs by doing this, it's just flat out easier, and it brings less attention to the companies actually hacking the accounts.
What are you gonna do next? Claim it was Bigfoot? Or suck it up and realize your PC isn't a fortress of security.
Blame the chinese. Currently most of the hacking, keylogging, gold selling and account stealing is coming out of China. Literally they perform a form of mmo terrorism and the problem is the Chinese government is doing nothing to stop them. It is perhaps the biggest and most dangerous factor to the mmorpg industries health and welbeing. The people behind these organizations have literally no moral or ethical code.
About the only thing safer is Linux. If any of you says Apple, you're an idiot. Apple has backdoors, they're just not exploited because most people cannot be arsed.
In the hacker contest a couple days ago...Safari and OSX got hacked in 5 seconds.
In most of the sponsored security events (def con, etc) Apple computers are usually the first to be breached. It is Unix after all, which means if you know root commands you can easily bring a Mac product to its iknees....
OS X is a Mach Kernel with some BSD thrown in. It's not Unix. I remember reading an article where Linus Torvaldes (spelling might be wrong there) was criticizing it for being insecure.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There are some things that you can do to protect yourself:
1.) No matter what, never click on a link in an email from Trion (or any dev company). Odds are that whatever is mentioned in the email will be linked from the front page. Always load the website manually. If it's a comment about your account then all the more reason to load the front page of the website yourself and log in normally.
Phishing is likely at the top of the reasons why so many accounts are being stolen.
2.) Change your email address that you use to sign into the game. Create a new Yahoo / Hotmail / GMail / FastMail / etc account to do this if you need to.
3.) NEVER use your game account's email address to register at game sites. It's a pain to take this extra step, but it pays off.
4.) Run anti-virus software. Preferably use AV that makes use of what is called "sand boxing". Basically, this is a virtual environment that is created and erased as needed, preventing trojans from taking root in your 'real' system.
5.) Create a secure password. Mix upper-case, lower-case and numbers and do not use them to spell a word (aka "leet speak"). Copy / pasting the password from a text file is a small thing compared to losing your account due to a simple password.
6.) Use Chrome 10. Flash, as we know, is used to distribute malware. Advertisement networks have been used to drop infections via flash. Chrome 10 now automatically sand boxes Flash. More information here about that. Basically, a compromised bit of Flash is highly unlikely to affect your system beyond the virtual environment that's created by the Chrome browser.
Note that Chrome supports a wide range of popular plugins. It's quite possible that it supports your favorite Firefox extension, or something similar to it. The biggest negative against it - in my opinion - is that its native support for Greasemonkey scripts is pretty iffy.
Lastly, for the truly paranoid, if you use Avast Internet Security then you now have something called a "Safe Zone". This is like "sand boxing", but it creates an entire protected desktop environment that is dedicated to a customized Chromium browser. The environment is sealed off from the rest of the system - it can't interact with your system and your system can't interact with it.
Good luck.
The only site I can think of that could've fucked me over is Allakhazam, to be honest.
Anyway, they've openly admitted their account system is vulnerable to bruteforcing, so eh.
Apart of me is inclined to think this is the work of some concentrated effort.. Probably a handcrafted "instruction of ease" that any hack noob could use (like hacking Combat Arms) and it has probably gone viral..
Another part of me doesn't believe that it could be THAT easy though.. because seriously, if someone was keylogging, why would they just do it for Rift? If they know your password and email, they could get into your actual account information on Trion's site and cancel your sub, and even clear your billing info.. They could change your password and lock you out of your own account..
No one has had their account completely ripped in half? Either these hackers actually have a heart and a conscience, or the tool they are using is extremely limited in its use..
What you don't know is that the major hackers aren't actually chinese, but Portuguese... but they don't show up like the chinese since they don't need to make "mmo terrorist"... they can earn ALOT more doing other illegal things. Every hacking community/organization haves a Portuguese on the top chains. It is proven that, in each mile square or metter square, there are more hackers in Portugal than all the countries in the world. They are just too sneaky and international.
I see a universe where unicorns fly... and my mother-in-law is in a grave at last.
|BEST UNIVERSE EVA AWARD|
I started with EQ in '99 and have been playing MMOs ever since. I have been hacked a total of 0 (ZERO) times. I must just be lucky.
rolls eyes
You are.
I have been Playing MMO's for longer than that and have never been hacked/account compromised.
Until today.
My luck just ran out, yours will someday too.
I agree with this. I had been unsubscribed from WoW for a while and the account was hacked. I never had any issues for the short time I played.
Statement: Script kiddies are not hackers. Script kiddies are talentless children who use other peoples software and programs.
Confused Query: Why is it only MMO gamers suffer from game account hacking issues outside of all the other games out there?
Statement: Simple. Because MMO accounts are worth money to people while an account for other non-MMO games are worth nothing more than generally the price of the game itself or less. While MMO accounts can reach up to the 100's + range, depending upon the accounts data. Such as levels, loot, and so forth.
Statement: In order to not fall prey to idiots, you yourself must have common sense enough to regularly monitor and take care of your account. Such as regular password changes, and not checking fake emails in your email account. Typically companies will not message you about your account information because they already have all your information on their end. Also remember to also not use direct payment such as a debit or credit card. Use other payment sources such as paypal and other means so your information is not taken and used against you.
The More You Know, meatbags.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
7.) If you didn't go to a website/webpage to download a file, don't download the file. If it pops up on you that you need to download something, say divx.. go to divx's website, or for flash, adobe's website, etc etc.
If you can do that, you can eliminate so much risk.
8.) Facebook - don't join every app that looks like it does something cool. A lot of the stuff passed around facebook doesn't "work" (though it does exactly what the creator intended) and people never bother/don't care to uninstall it.
9.) Don't torrent. Just don't. You're asking for it when you download one of those files.
10.) Use Chrome 10. I know this guy already brought it up but it is worth restating. Simplicity is security
. Chrome runs better and faster and every program and its mother doesn't try to install a toolbar for it. I'm cleaning out my friend's computer to sell it and I started IE the other day to find it had 5 different toolbars programs like yahoo had snuck in.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.