How is SE handling Hacked Accounts.

So, I log off on Wednesday Night around midnight. I go to work next day and try to log on Thursday about 1pm. I get an error message saying my account isn't registered.

I call SE spend 1h 58m waiting only to get DC. I call back.. at 1h 46m I get a rep on the line. I tell him what's going on and he promptly tells me my account has been banned for RMT issues. Are you out of your mind.. I have 100k gil to my name and have done nothing but bust my ass leveling, gearing and paying repair bills. He says my account was compromised. So they put in a ticket to escalate it to JP so they can investigate and hopefully restore my account. Its now been well over 48hours and I call SE. I sit for 1h 40m before I get a rep and he can tell me absolutely nothing. He can only tell me that it is under review and there is no ETA available.

From talking to other FF players, the hacking is running rampant. 9 players from a guild on Behemoth, 16 players from a guild on Hyperion and that's not even scratching the surface.
Apparently there are multiple "FFXIV Fan Info Sites" that are being run by hackers. When you go to the site you get an embedded key logger. I've only been to a few of those sites, like ZAM, XIVDB.com are the main ones I use.

It almost feels like SE are dragging their feet on the hacking issues.

I have lost all faith in waiting for we to rollback my account. I have closed my ticket and moving on all I want to do is play screw my lost Gil..

Agreed i'm currently at 3 days with no access, I hope they get this sorted out faster... and get better at it as time goes along.

I feel your pain but, this is the exact reason I don't use fan/info sites. I will tell you however from what happened to me SE will first look to see if you bought gil then restore your account and tell you get security key/token or next time they'll leave it banned. From what I understand most of the folks who got hacked bought gil or got careless with the account passwords ,using the same password they used for the game as passwords on these "info" sites, not saying you did but it's common in the players I've spoken to who got hacked.

P.S.
Forgive my english I'm from Jamaica and our english uses a lot of slang.

I really feel bad for you guys... You have my hope that you're up and running very soon. I agree with Tyzeon about using the same password everywhere: It's a dangerous game. Don't do it. But I am curious if any of you have the security key generator. The app is free if you have smart phones or the security key itself is a few bucks that could save this headache. If you DO have the generator, then I am truly scared about SE's security practices...

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Originally Posted by TeaTimeBear

Completely misunderstood the post at hand.

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Not an uncommon thing in these forums, most of these people probably didn't read anything other than the title.

Out of curiosity what browser or browser add-ons do you use?

What do you expect them to do, besides do what they're already doing? They can't prevent this, account security is the user's responsibility.

In all honesty OP I'm not sympathetic with your plight at all due to the fact that pretty much everyone who's ever had an account hacked has gone to a malicious site with intent on buying in game currency.

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Originally Posted by Pavise

In all honesty OP I'm not sympathetic with your plight at all due to the fact that pretty much everyone who's ever had an account hacked has gone to a malicious site with intent on buying in game currency.

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It's posts like these that really show how ignorant and ridiculously stupid some people can be. It makes zero sense.

"with intent on buying in game currency"...really?...REALLY?

Just stop posting you troll.

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Originally Posted by Ryujin_Ketu

It's posts like these that really show how ignorant and ridiculously stupid some people can be. It makes zero sense.

"with intent on buying in game currency"...really?...REALLY?

Just stop posting you troll.

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I've never had an account in any game hacked at all, but I've witnessed friends who've done the above and have had their accounts hacked multiple times on a fair few games.

You are the ignorant one for ignoring plain facts right in front of you since someone who is safe and doing the proper thing is NEVER going to get their account hacked.

And to the OP I hope your account gets recovered dude.

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Originally Posted by Pavise

In all honesty OP I'm not sympathetic with your plight at all due to the fact that pretty much everyone who's ever had an account hacked has gone to a malicious site with intent on buying in game currency.

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You know its usually the pattern for a person to accuse someone of something because they have done it themselves. As I said in my post, I have never been to a RMT site, nor will I. In game currency is easy to make buying it defeats the purpose of playing the game IMO. Not to wish ill upon anyone, but I would LMFAO if you got hacked. Karma is indeed a bitch.

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Originally Posted by Pavise

I've never had an account in any game hacked at all, but I've witnessed friends who've done the above and have had their accounts hacked multiple times on a fair few games.

You are the ignorant one for ignoring plain facts right in front of you since someone who is safe and doing the proper thing is NEVER going to get their account hacked.

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That's a rather silly argument. For one, you're drawing connections that may not necessarily exist. Secondly, even if the connection does exist, that doesn't mean it's the only way it can happen.

I think the most common mistake people make is re-using their password/login. If you have the same login and password for a fan site as you do for FF14 itself, prepare to lose your account sooner or later. You shouldn't re-use passwords at all of course, but doing it for fan sites is especially bad.

Authenticator is your best friend, seriously, you have to TRY to get hacked if you have one.

Just disregard anything Pavise has said, I heard trolls just come out to feed once in awhile. I have NEVER bought, intended to buy, or visited a website for buying any in-game currency for any game...and still got hacked.

In regards to OP, I hope you get everything straightened out. I put the rollback request in and the ticket is open...so we'll see what happens and how long this will take. The lack of communication and customer service from SE is really disheartening.

And that Kids is why you don't buy gill!

It's not a keylogger at all.... It's people not using unique password's on all their accounts.

You are correct that FFXIV fan sites exist that are being run by RMT subgroups.... But all they do is collect login information.. E.g. you sign up for the fan site... In doing so you give them your email address and a password. So they just sit there going to gmail.com/hotmail.com/live.com etc trying to loginto peoples email accounts until they find someone that has the same email password as the one that signed up on their site. Then they scim your email for your SE Account Creation and when they find it they have your game account user name. Then they go to the site and reset your password for your SE Account, and even possibly changing your email address. Then they log in as you and spam RMT messages.

9/10 people getting hack are getting hacked because their email address password is the same password their using to sign up for these sites.

There may be a keylogger, but if your are downloading and installing something from a website you did it to yourself. Never run javaapplets or .exe's off the web that aren't from a trusted source, and ffxiv fansites are not trusted sources.

If you had a ONeTimePassword (which SE offers) you could have avoided this. The one time password needs to be physically in their hands for them to login to your account, even if they have the user/pass.

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Originally Posted by Pavise

In all honesty OP I'm not sympathetic with your plight at all due to the fact that pretty much everyone who's ever had an account hacked has gone to a malicious site with intent on buying in game currency.

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There were a whole bunch of people who got keylogged from an ad on ZAM when it was still called Allakhazam. So it's not always a currency selling site.

That said, it amazes me that people still go to Allakhazam. And this ffxivdb one seemed sketchy from the very beginning, it was just being inserted in way too many threads to be natural. Not saying that's where it came from, but there's a reason I only view those sites on a tablet or phone, and never use their registration links.

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Originally Posted by Pavise

I've never had an account in any game hacked at all, but I've witnessed friends who've done the above and have had their accounts hacked multiple times on a fair few games.

You are the ignorant one for ignoring plain facts right in front of you since someone who is safe and doing the proper thing is NEVER going to get their account hacked.

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I drive a Honda, I have never gotten into a traffic accident, but I've witnessed friends who drive Toyotas gotten into accidents multiple times.

You are the ignorant one for ignoring plain facts right in front of you since someone who drives a Honda and doing the proper thing is NEVER going to get into a car accident.

See how terrible your logic is? (No, I don't drive a Honda :p). The only thing you've proven here is how much you don't know about web security.

I disagree that this automatically means the OP tried to buy gil, blanket statements like that are rarely ever a good idea to use in constructive discussion, but I also fail to see the issue people have with SE over this situation. Their responsibility for your account security stops at their servers that have your info on them.

If someone gets ahold of your username and password by any means other than hacking into SE's system, that's more or less on you. If anything, the fault lies with the 'hacker' in this example by choosing to commit the action in the first place, but if a website can have an embedded keylogger on it, it stands to reason it's possible to pair that info with the IP you connected to that site from, and spoof it when logging into your game account.

If SE's own security becomes compromised, then sure, it's on them. But until that announcement is made, I'd assume they have plenty of people phoning in for CS, and since they've already provided two different means of accessing a way to increase your account's security, hacked accounts aren't going to be bumped up the waiting list.

On a Side note, I will take partial responsibility for what has happened to me. I had a Security Token on my account from the moment you could attach one. In my stupidity, when all of the log in issues were happening and you had to type in your password 300 times, I got sick of typing in the security token... so I removed it. I honestly never even thought about it again once they patched, that's my own fault. A hard lesson to learn but needless to say there is a Security Token on my non playable SE Account now.

It's been said, but seriously, consider an authenticator. They're cheap, last ages, and are easy to use. Even if only for peace of mind, they pay for themselves. And at least the devs here actually do something about it. When FFXI was first inundated with RMT, the customer support team basically said "Deal with it." It wasn't until it became a widespread problem they acknowledged it, but they still blamed their user base till it became a mess and sites like Yahoo reported on it. I'm in no way condoning their slow response times, but at least be happy they're doing something about it. Because SE's customer service has a horrible track record with this kind of thing.

Consider using a browser with addons that can prevent scripts from running until you allow them, or block the advertisements entirely. Firefox can do both of those things. Some sites don't like it when you use AdBlocker but NoScript may be sufficient.


Additionally, NEVER EVER use the same password for your email and other secure programs. If you use the same password for everything, one compromised account means a multitude of compromised accounts. If you have a hard time remembering them (because I do), use a Notepad file or simply write them down. Most browsers can even remember them for you though I'm not a fan of that.

Also note most antivirus programs will have difficulty detecting they keyloggers. If you want a good free one, try Avast.

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Originally Posted by Pavise

In all honesty OP I'm not sympathetic with your plight at all due to the fact that pretty much everyone who's ever had an account hacked has gone to a malicious site with intent on buying in game currency.

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Actually, it's the repeated use of the same password. Usually sites like Curse or PSN (used those examples because it actaully happened a few years ago) get hacked and their user list and passwords get distributed to the hacker community. So if you use the same email/username/password, they have a scripter just enter in all previously known combinations until they gain access.

So how about a little sympathy before you spread your hate.

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Originally Posted by Krimzin

On a Side note, I will take partial responsibility for what has happened to me. I had a Security Token on my account from the moment you could attach one. In my stupidity, when all of the log in issues were happening and you had to type in your password 300 times, I got sick of typing in the security token... so I removed it. I honestly never even thought about it again once they patched, that's my own fault. A hard lesson to learn but needless to say there is a Security Token on my non playable SE Account now.

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Partial responsibility? You should take full responsibility, it is your fault, plain and simple.

Been hacked before so I feel your pain. Got an authenticated and haven't had issues since.

Good luck getting ur account back. On a side note what is the USA phone number. Their old number always rings a busy signal.

858-790-7529

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Originally Posted by Krimzin

It almost feels like SE are dragging their feet on the hacking issues.

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Authenticator... you don't use it, do you?
Even with key loggers, they will not know your Authenticator number.

Personally, I don't think they are dragging their feet, they have already provided counter measurement for Hacking, you just need to spend couple minutes or less to set one up.

how not go get hacked a vivi edition

1. dont share password
2. don't go on gold seller sites

I have warned everyone one weeks ago after my account got hacked. How many people insult me at that time. If you don't use one time password, good luck. Hacker know your password and they will log on later when someone buy the Gil. Now you are the cheap labor help them earn Gil.

There's definitely something going on. Somehow a third party obtained the SE Member ID of myself and another Linkshell member, but must not have obtained our Passwords, as we were only locked out of our accounts for a few hours - we did not get hacked.

This is especially odd, as my SE ID is different from every other Username I have on any other site service. Furthermore, I use Firefox/NoScript/AdBlock as well as an updated version of Trend Micro. In the following post I will disclose all of the sites I've used in the past month since FF XIV came out (I'm very paranoid about my internet usage, and do not visit any site I have not been to before or is not a part of my daily routine unless I need to.)

Do not accuse those who got hacked of going to fishy sites. It is very apparent there is a leak in a third party source and these individuals were just unfortunate in not having a Security Token. What I want to know is, how did they get our SE ID to begin with?

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FF XIV Lodestone (Old & New)
FF XIV Forums
SE Store
SE Account Page
xivdb
ffxivpads
My Free Company forums
daevaofwar
bluegartr
valk.dancing-mad
Facebook
Kotaku
CNN
Huffington Post
Daily Show
Colbert Report
AOL.com
AOL Mail Client
MangaPanda
Hulu
anilinkz
Trufit Student Loan
Drexel.edu
Drexel One
Youtube
Dropbox
dndtools
d20SRD
Wikipedia
Dorkly
Serebii.net
Gamestop
Bestbuy

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None of these sites share my login or password for my SE id. As you can see, most of them are very reputable as well. There exists the possibility that somehow a virus or keylogger made it past No Script, Adblock, and my TrendMicro Anti-virus and has not been picked up by current definitions, but I also feel that is highly unlikely.

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Originally Posted by Mazi

Authenticator is your best friend, seriously, you have to TRY to get hacked if you have one.

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No, you simply need your session hijacked.

Another trend is they may have jacked account info from another MMO and attempted to use it in FFXIV. This also works for hijacking accounts.

Just out of curiousity, how many of those who have been hacked are on computer and how many are on ps3? Id like to see how those numbers broke down.

... They don't need to share a password with your SE ID. What I said is a password shared with your EMAIL ADDRESS. The email you used to sign up for this game, is it Gmail, Hotmail, Live, etc etc etc ? If it is, is the password you use to check your email the same as any of those sites you visited? if it is, and you went there, you gave them your email credentials. Which they then used to find your SE ID, which they then used to reset your password for your SE Account (which was sent to you email, that they have access to) and then they can log in as you.

If you're referring to me, the Password I use for my E-mail is also unique.

I won't lie and say every password I have for every username is a unique and beautiful snowflake of perfect security, but the passwords I use for my SE account, E-mail, and Facebook are all unique and unlike any other password I use for any other service.