ArenaNet reports that it received 8,500 hacking-related support requests last weekend and another 2,500-plus by Monday, after a hack into an unknown Guild Wars 2 fansite.
They’re promptly responding with a load of common sense advice that everyone should know this late into the technological era: Don’t use the same password / login for the fansite as you do the game… or anything.
Many players are laying blame on ArenaNet for lack of strong account security at launch, while others are blaming the players who aren’t using the common sense. I’m making a public announcement that you should change your passwords just to be safe.
Those of you playing, how do you feel on the issue?
Its not Arenanet’s fault when some other site gets hacked. I don’t even use the same email address for my MMO’s. I use a different email, that gets forwarded to my real one.
Passwords are not difficult. Make a standard password, like ‘Fat45′. For every website or place that needs a pawssword, modify it to match. Need a Kotaku.com password? ‘Fat456kotaku’. Done, your 1000x more secure than those people that just got hacked. And when Kotaku gets hacked, you don’t give away your email, Bank of America and GW2 passwords as well.
Don’t blame Arenanet for your laziness.
September 7th, 2012 at 7:35 pmQuote
I agree. Players need to excersize common sense. There is no 100% fail safe way. But still, use your brains.
September 7th, 2012 at 10:24 pmQuote
STFU if you dont know what you are talking about. My account got hacked and i used an unique email and password and i never signed up for a fansite in my life. So bitches please..
September 7th, 2012 at 11:14 pmQuote
Well I don’t know about everyone else but I like totally believe him.
September 8th, 2012 at 3:28 amQuote
@Cryptor@muggen
September 8th, 2012 at 10:45 amBitches please? What an incredible douchebag you must be.
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@Larry: Someone who have wait more than 7 day for only one response from the support. I also hacked 9 days ago and i use unique password and my master email account. ArenaNet made some security fails in the start. They don’t send confirmation link for account name change in the old email adress, don’t use temporary IP ban after some failed login attempt and don’t use security question. So this is not only the players fail i think.
September 9th, 2012 at 1:56 amQuote
I have been locked out of my account for 9 days now.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:00 am.
I like to think myself fairly savvy around PCs, I use unique passwords for email and banking, I never answer the secret questions with genuine answers, regularly check my computer for infections. (passed last check after having this account hacked with 5 seperate AV programs, a mix of paid and free all removed before installing the next one to avoid them conflicting) etc etc.
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I haven’t to my knowledge signed up for any GW2 fansite – apart fromt he forums on the GW2 site itself – and even then used a differnt PW to what I used for everything else.
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I have however used the same password for GW2 that I used for a couple of other premium games. (That has now changed – all passwords have been altered to be made unique). because of this I think it may be possible one of these games databases may have become compromised as they were the only thing that shared anything in common with my GW2 account.
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If this is the case I am partly to blame for not making each game password indepedent of each other – but on the same hand if this is the case one of the companies making the games has cocked up by becoming compromised and losing my info. Although still not sure how they could have changed my GW2 account info without having got hold of my email info.
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@Xaras also in addition to last post i would like to also confirm that I was not asked confimation that i wanted my account details changed from Arenanet – I had an email saying
September 9th, 2012 at 8:05 am.
“”Someone -hopefully you!- has requested to change the email address associated with your Guild Wars account.
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Need help or have questions about your Guild Wars account? Visit our support site: http://support.guildwars2.com/.
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Thanks!
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-The ArenaNet Team”
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No link to confirm, just changed! after I had this email I was locked out.
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Some people also clicked the strange mail in the spam folder (or even in the inbox) from “Arenanet” asking you to quickly submit your login credentials or else your game might be compromised.
September 9th, 2012 at 11:45 amQuote
I had a unique pass and email…and mine got hacked.
September 10th, 2012 at 11:22 pmQuote
This common sense this is bull crap. I have never registered on a “fansite”, and I am willing to believe that my password was stolen from somewhere else. There I said it, I use a variety of passwords but some of them repeat.
But guess fuckin what? That doesn’t matter. So what if I use that password somewhere else, what happens if the password was compromised directly from the GW2 database? There needs to be security measures in place to prevent this from happening. Common sense also says to have a confirmation link when changing your email or password from your original setup. Every other website has some sort of precautions taken just in case.
I’m sick of hearing the excuses of “oh well you didn’t use common sense”, or even worse “well you have a keylogger”.
Guess what, not once has ANY of my plethra of accounts across the web have ever been hacked. But 2 weeks into GW2, and BAM. That’s a common story amongst the GW2 users who have had their hacked accounts.
Conspiracy Theory: ANet knows their users credentials have been compromised and are refusing to let people know.
September 16th, 2012 at 11:17 amQuote
I got my account hacked and i had good passwords. The problem is to reset your password via email all you need is to enter your serial code for the game. The problem with this is that your serial code is available in your email so there’s pretty much no security check on resetting passwords since using a serial for a check is useless, a hacker does not need to hack a fansite and do this mix a match password and account names (easily preventable with smart passwords) like Anet suggests, it just needs to find out random users email/passwords, find the serial code email and simply go to account support and reset the password.
September 16th, 2012 at 10:42 pmQuote