Hacked / Account Suspended / No ETA

got my acct hacked on 6th sept.. so it's 2 weeks for me w no replies!

They closed my ticket lol..... no notification either.

There was a thread on reddit saying they actually do get back to you and he got his account recovered but it takes awhile seeing as they are being swamped with requests. Your best bet is to reopen another ticket if it gets closed and wait.

You work in internet security, know how many ways there are to crack a password, and still don't use a security token/authenticator? Even after their announcement of security breaches and required password changes? I had an attempted log-in at one point and was forced to change my password, but I had no problems.

I spoke with them and they said it will take about two weeks to unlock my accuont.

wife got hacked, they said a week to resolve

SE needs to implement steps to facilitate recovery of accounts. Other MMOS have mechanisms in place for account recovery these days. Accounts ARE going to be compromised, and leaving the legit owners high and dry will lead to lost subscriptions. There are far too many vectors available these days to get a keylogger. New malware is being created at a faster rate than any AntiVirus vendor can keep up with. One can take steps to keep their accounts and computers secure, but no security is absolutely perfect.

One thing I do think that SE should consider is that rather than insta-banning is to implement something similar to RIFT's "Coin Lock." Coin Lock detects if an account is logged into from a new IP, and the user cannot do much of anything until a separate code is entered into the game. This code is emailed to the legitimate user's email address. While this might be a minor inconvenience to users when their IP legitimately changes, it helped considerably with the problem in that game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Himea

I had an attempted log-in at one point and was forced to change my password, but I had no problems.

---

That's where the difference between you and a number of other people begin. I NEVER got an email or any such notification of an attempted login, but instead that security check was bypassed and the hacker gained access to my account regardless. So to reiterate for the <insert big ass number here> time, HOW someone got hacked isn't the issue we're questioning or refuting. WHY the customer service side of SE is non-existant and WHY it takes literally hours to get a hold of any living person just to get your situation "escalated" and WHY does it take so long to realize that someone who's talked to CS and verified that you are indeed the legitimate account owner takes WEEKS to rectify and gain access to your account.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Abraxis

HOW someone got hacked isn't the issue we're questioning or refuting.

---

Personally, I do not like the "blame the victim approach." Unless you handed over your login details to a powerlevelling service or similar, the blame lies on the criminals who compromise the accounts and players who partake in RMT.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rialle

Personally, I do not like the "blame the victim approach." Unless you handed over your login details to a powerlevelling service or similar, the blame lies on the criminals who compromise the accounts and players who partake in RMT.

---

Agreed. And again, it's just mind boggling that the customer service that SE has is just so...AWFUL! I honestly cannot understand how they are able to function as a company with such terrible customer service. And even in regards to things NOT related to hacked accounts, people are being left out in the cold. Billing issues, payment options not being recognized, in game currency disappearing and the asinine number of spammers and botters that are just crawling out of the woodwork! And those server transfers that they literally advertise on their own site as "scheduled to begin mid-September" is nowhere in sight! It's getting to the point that I really don't care about my account being retrieved, because if this continues I wouldn't want to play anyway for fear that something will happen IN the game that i'll have to wait days/weeks/months for them to pop their heads out of their asses, see the sunlight and realize "Oh...i have a business I need to run!"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Himea

I had an attempted log-in at one point and was forced to change my password, but I had no problems.

---

And that is the difference here. The only thing we received from SE was an email 5 days after his account was suspended telling us that the email ticket that we sent in to get his account unlocked was useless, and to contact live chat or by phone. Which we already did the day after we sent the email ticket since neither of those options are even open on the weekends. They never asked to reset our password to unlock his account, like most other people, which leaves us still locked out.

So instead of looking down your nose at people, I'd count yourself lucky that you got the response you did from them. Instead of having to sit around playing the waiting game while getting first hand experience of how unsuccessful customer support is at fixing actual issues.

And my point was more on SE response to being hacked, not the hacking itself. If someone wants to hack into your account somewhere, they can find a way. Nothing is impenetrable. Even the so called "magic" tokens were hacked into a few years ago, but they didn't admit there had been a problem until three months after it was compromised. However, if SE would take the role of helping people who's accounts had got broken into instead of locking them down with No ETA they could show how much they cared about their customers instead of punishing them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rialle

SE needs to implement steps to facilitate recovery of accounts. Other MMOS have mechanisms in place for account recovery these days. Accounts ARE going to be compromised, and leaving the legit owners high and dry will lead to lost subscriptions. There are far too many vectors available these days to get a keylogger. New malware is being created at a faster rate than any AntiVirus vendor can keep up with. One can take steps to keep their accounts and computers secure, but no security is absolutely perfect.

One thing I do think that SE should consider is that rather than insta-banning is to implement something similar to RIFT's "Coin Lock." Coin Lock detects if an account is logged into from a new IP, and the user cannot do much of anything until a separate code is entered into the game. This code is emailed to the legitimate user's email address. While this might be a minor inconvenience to users when their IP legitimately changes, it helped considerably with the problem in that game.

---

I heard the sudden rash of hacking occurred after 1.0 was updated because they took out the IP match security, which was a terrible idea. Not sure if it's true, but that would make sense.

My favorite feature from a MMO I played 6-12 months ago was that every time I logged into the game I had to copy a code that was sent to my email along with the usual username, password information. Until you decided to disable the feature, and I never did. I think it was GW2, but I honestly can't remember.

They definitely need to do something though. Other then making users extremely unhappy I'm sure this is bogging down their customer support / techs and causing undo stress that an automated system....like the log in restriction which they're obviously not using across the board would fix.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Abraxis

That's where the difference between you and a number of other people begin. I NEVER got an email or any such notification of an attempted login, but instead that security check was bypassed and the hacker gained access to my account regardless. So to reiterate for the <insert big ass number here> time, HOW someone got hacked isn't the issue we're questioning or refuting. WHY the customer service side of SE is non-existant and WHY it takes literally hours to get a hold of any living person just to get your situation "escalated" and WHY does it take so long to realize that someone who's talked to CS and verified that you are indeed the legitimate account owner takes WEEKS to rectify and gain access to your account.

---

Yep. The hack is less of an issue, then getting your account back after being locked. I know a number of people that as long as their character isn't deleted would be happy to just play and not worry about getting their items or gil back immediately. Or depending on how desperate they are, at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rialle

Personally, I do not like the "blame the victim approach." Unless you handed over your login details to a powerlevelling service or similar, the blame lies on the criminals who compromise the accounts and players who partake in RMT.

---

Exactly. The way SE is acting is obviously the response of someone under-manned and out of touch with their player base. If the account has a clean history up until now it's not like the person pre-ordered, played the beta, leveled up to 40 and working on 5 crafting professions just to spam about gil sellers for 2 hours. I'm assuming the investigation on that would be quite short. They need to stop punishing the owners of hacked accounts and let them be reinstated with a password change and installing a token if they didn't have one. Or something of the like. Otherwise it seems like they're just intent on punishing the victims more.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Abraxis

Agreed. And again, it's just mind boggling that the customer service that SE has is just so...AWFUL! I honestly cannot understand how they are able to function as a company with such terrible customer service. And even in regards to things NOT related to hacked accounts, people are being left out in the cold. Billing issues, payment options not being recognized, in game currency disappearing and the asinine number of spammers and botters that are just crawling out of the woodwork! And those server transfers that they literally advertise on their own site as "scheduled to begin mid-September" is nowhere in sight! It's getting to the point that I really don't care about my account being retrieved, because if this continues I wouldn't want to play anyway for fear that something will happen IN the game that i'll have to wait days/weeks/months for them to pop their heads out of their asses, see the sunlight and realize "Oh...i have a business I need to run!"

---

This. I read somewhere that SE with FFXIV is treating it like a non MMO when the only customer support issues you assume you'll have is a bad disk. Hopefully they mass hire people on because it doesn't look the problems are ending anytime soon. Although my husband has checked their hiring site and it doesn't look like this is happening. The sooner they get more staff that are capable of fixing the actual problems or giving decent customer support that can actually do something instead of just apologizing the better.

So apparently a little bird flew in today and told me the reason why SE is having such a hard time helping all these customers with all these compromised accounts. SE only has ONE person in charge of account security, and the said person is located in Japan. I don't know how reliable this is, but if this is really the case then god help us all. lol.

I was hacked as well, and so far I've only had the suspension notice and a confirmation of a ticket I lodged being "lodged correctly". No follow up or response. I followed their KB article when I suspected my account was hacked and immediately changed password and attached a security token. Yes, I did it after the fact, but I would like to remind those that will say "your own fault" that it is optional. Additionally, the very next thing I did was reboot my computer into safe mode and run MS Security Essentials and Malwarebytes scans (which took all up about 8hrs) and NO KEYLOGGER was found by either program. The only thing found on my computer was the urausy.E ransomware (which I've removed) and that is NOT a keylogger (http://www.microsoft.com/security/po...TML%2FRansom.E).

So, as I:
- use a different password for every game
- use the recommended combination of capitals, numbers, and non-alpha characters
- have over the minimum recommended password length
- have no keylogger software on my computer that any reputable scanning software can find
- have never been to a gil buying/selling site
- have never provided my username or password to anyone

I'd really like SE to step up. I admit I could have protected my account better by having a security token, but given that it's optional, not having one should not be an excuse to receive poor customer service on this issue or the severe wait time around it being corrected. I've given the company money and followed their procedures. I would like them to honour the exchange.

Illurim, MSE and MBytes aren't the best for catching keyloggers. You would need a program that actively seeks them out, even then it isn't 100%. If you suspect you have a keylogger your best bet is to start clean.

That fact you had a Trojan suspects me that you have questionable habits to begin with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cirsce

We work in Internet Security and use lowercase, uppercase, symbols and numbers so the people with "lolpassword" only have a matter of weeks before they're number gets drawn and they're in here with us.

---

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/password_strength.png

Found your post amusingly ironical.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aorix

Illurim, MSE and MBytes aren't the best for catching keyloggers. You would need a program that actively seeks them out, even then it isn't 100%. If you suspect you have a keylogger your best bet is to start clean.

That fact you had a Trojan suspects me that you have questionable habits to begin with.

---

I would have said this a few years ago, but recently more and more mainstream sites are becoming vectors thanks to advertising networks that don't verify the content they are serving. Getting a infected no longer necessarily means you've been browsing warez and porn.

But I do agree that if you do get a keylogger: Fdisk, format, reinstall, and change all your passwords.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kraun

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/password_strength.png

Found your post amusingly ironical.

---

That image is super old. And if I had to choose between a 30+ character password that contains uppercase, lowercase, symbols and numbers vs lolpassword, I know which one would be cracked faster. However, I'm glad I was able to be of some amusement to you.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aorix

Illurim, MSE and MBytes aren't the best for catching keyloggers. You would need a program that actively seeks them out, even then it isn't 100%. If you suspect you have a keylogger your best bet is to start clean.

That fact you had a Trojan suspects me that you have questionable habits to begin with.

---

Instead of swiping me with your claws from that pedestal, how about you lean down and help a poor guy out and lend me a hand since I'm so dumb and you're so smart - could you make a helpful suggestion as to what would be better to scan with, kind sir? Or do you want to continue being a bitch for absolutely no reason I can see, when I'm just trying to play a game I fell in love with and happy to continue to pay for despite all this.

I guess that's too much to ask for these days.

I can't even get my 30 days free code to active after 48 hours, and I'm pretty pissed about that, so I can only imagine what individuals with locked accounts must be livid about. I hope your issues are resolved and you can continue to play the game you enjoy, and I share the same worries when the lack of customer support is so staggering: in game and out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Illurim

Instead of swiping me with your claws from that pedestal, how about you lean down and help a poor guy out and lend me a hand since I'm so dumb and you're so smart - could you make a helpful suggestion as to what would be better to scan with, kind sir? Or do you want to continue being a bitch for absolutely no reason I can see, when I'm just trying to play a game I fell in love with and happy to continue to pay for despite all this.

I guess that's too much to ask for these days.

---

I did tell you, if you think you have a keylogger at all then you need to format and start fresh. There are a few programs that stop a lot of loggers proactively. However once a keylogger is on your system it isn't as easy to figure out how to get rid of it. Better safe than sorry.

And what did your husband learn from this fiasco?

Most people should learn 1 simple rule from their first time being compromised in an MMO, and that is to NOT click the links you see in chat getting spammed all day. Yes, despite what your husband told you, or you may think, that is what happened, that is how he was compromised (Not hacked), he is the one who willingly went to the website, which caused this, not you, not anyone else, him.

It has absolutely nothing to do with SE "Security". He could have bought an authenticator/one time password if he wanted more security.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cirsce

@Dorin My husbands password was between 10-20 and used lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and symbols. Now it's 30 characters, not that he can use it.

@Abraxis Yeah, it doesn't look like anyone is hearing back about anything anytime soon.

I've read somewhere that in the event that your account is suspended you were just supposed to have to reset your password and it would unlock. However, we have not gotten an email back from SE acknowledging that hacking or suspension even occurred to his account.

It also looks like people waiting to get their items and gil back who did get hacked, but thankfully not suspended (yet) are living in a dream world. Since some have been waiting for over a week for a roll back and then finally just deciding to play and stop waiting.

We decided against buying another copy for him to play on since this is not an isolated incident and the most common post on the forums is hack / suspension / banned for getting hacked. And other issues like them telling people they never received their 90 day subscription even though it was taken out of their bank. We both want to see how it all plays out before sinking more money into a game that seems to suffer from customer support incompetency.

I almost feel like this was how they handled their servers being overwhelmed. Completely shut down sales for two weeks with no word when it'll be back / completely suspend anyone with suspicious activity and give no word when it'll be back up. I am really in love with the game itself, but between billing errors, hacking and suspensions and generally just no word from anyone who can actually fix a problem even after waiting 2-5 hours for customer support it seems like it's just a matter of time before something goes wrong for one of us, again. And the account you've poured so much time and effort into is taken away with them giving no word to you on what's happening or when something even will happen.

---

What I have bolded is in fact a true statement, it says it on the support forum website in the steps if your account has been compromised. Quote with link source "B) Follow steps for a normal password change
If for some reason the automated email does not reach your inbox, or if you accidentally deleted the email, please follow the steps for changing your password through the URL below. The login restriction will be removed once you change your password.

* Change Password *insert reset link"

source: https://support.na.square-enix.com/f...1&c=58&sc=348&

all in all, the claim is total BS and a fraud cause clearly resetting your password isn't unlocking the account as described which is sad because if it actually did what they claimed, it would save a lot of people a lot of headaches and save them a larger customer base. It was my girlfriends account that got hacked and she never received an email or any sort of communication from Square Enix. The way she found out was when she went to try and log in she got the message "you could not log in because the service account in question is not registered. If you would like to log into the service, please log into the square enix account management system and register the service account" at which point we went to mogstation and logged in and found a character she never created on a server we dont play on and at the top it saying "this service account has been suspended. Then we went to the support forums and she followed the steps from the source i linked above and changed her password, yet, still nothing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JowyAvilon

... at which point we went to mogstation and logged in and found a character she never created on a server we dont play on and at the top it saying "this service account has been suspended. Then we went to the support forums and she followed the steps from the source i linked above and changed her password, yet, still nothing.

---

Good luck. I reached that point 11 days ago and have had no response yet. I fear if I contact them again, they'll just reset my place in line for 'investigation'.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tort

And what did your husband learn from this fiasco?

Most people should learn 1 simple rule from their first time being compromised in an MMO, and that is to NOT click the links you see in chat getting spammed all day. Yes, despite what your husband told you, or you may think, that is what happened, that is how he was compromised (Not hacked), he is the one who willingly went to the website, which caused this, not you, not anyone else, him.

It has absolutely nothing to do with SE "Security". He could have bought an authenticator/one time password if he wanted more security.

---

Stop just assuming that's the case. That's not the case in mine, and I'm sure nearly all of the other cases listed within this thread. I don't know exactly how our accounts got compromised, but it is NOT due to usage or visitation to any goldselling site.

And beside that point; regardless of how the accounts got compromised, SE's response time on this is atrocious.

IP Addresses are easy to mask these days. Proxies are so widely used now a days. Even if you yourself don't use it, your ISP might have one on their routers somewhere. Even if you work for that company, once it hits a router that is not owned by that company, it might have a proxy on that. Meaning an IP address is no longer a way to track things for sure. That being said, SE has actually offered several ways to make sure your account stays safe. There's the special one-time password that's available through your cell phone text messaging. With text messages usually being free to $0.50 USD at most, it's not a huge amount you'll be spending to keep your account safe. I'm not completely sure how this works but it doesn't cost that much and as far as I know, everyone that's used this method for sure (meaning I know them personally outside of FFXIV) has yet to have their account get hacked.

PS: I changed my password recently and I received an message about it right away on my own. If I didn't make that change, a simple click would've solved all my problems. The features are there and there are free and/or cheap alternatives. Please use them before your own account gets hacked too. And please, please, please don't click on those links that people spam. Let SE do that instead.

Either way, I think we can all at least agree on the fact that Square Enix's customer service is well below poor on this issue over all.