PSA: Real Money Traders and Account Security

[Endy]

Ranebow, you make a lot of assumptions in your arguments. It is true that social engineering attacks are always a risk, but given the standards applied to gold farming in general, it has a miniscule chance to be involved here. If it was an inside job, it would be true that no amount of caution on our part would solve the problem, but as not every account has been cleaned out on a given server, this is obviously not the case. Unfortunately, as the processing power of the common PC rises, so too does the ability to brute force. Studies in the IT industry have shown that a large percentage of compromised information outside of user error is caused by brute force methods, and the number has been on the rise since the early 2000's. I don't have a link handy, but I encourage you and all others who are curious to do research on the subject.

Also, 'modern' iterations of browsers update almost as often as antivirus suites to plug holes and bugs in the programs, as do operating system updates. If such methods as described are too dated to work or moot, this would not be necessary. However, the fact that these issues need to be fixed is proof enough that security can be circumvented, and it does indeed happen all the time. Security is not something you slap on and be done with; any IT professional will tell you the same thing. Please try not to spread misinformation by drawing only on your own experiences as a source. The fact is, nothing you do will ever completely secure you against all attacks. However, layering security provides deterrents which are effective against all but the most dedicated attackers, and they have much bigger targets than you or I.

Just as well, my topic is about what the user can do in regards to the specific problems that are likely in play as far as people's accounts being compromised. It may well be a social engineering scheme, unlikely as it may be, but that's out of the general user's hands.

[Endy]

Bumping to keep information on frontpage.