How safe will STO be against Hackers?

[Sir_Cedric]

On the game side of things I hope very safe, on the player side, now that's hard.

I will tell you what happened to me, and I still don't know what happened. I play WoW for now, until I find something better, but one day my account was hacked. Sometime at 3 in the morning on Friday, someone got into my account, and stole all my gold, and good items. They even sold some of my soulbound stuff to get more gold, then they spammed on two different servers and got my account banned. So I am in the middle of getting everything I can fixed and returned with Bizzard, and to date the account is still closed.

So in STO, how will this be handled? I know it's not much you can do on a user side, but there must be something we as players can do.

BTW I thought I had a good virus scanner, tossing that junk out, and looking for something else. lol I was told I might have a keylogger on my computer, but I still have not found anything like that. Still looking.

So if you have a clue feel free to post it here. Hackers suck in my book, Why? Cause they got nothing better to do beside suck with people's lives. :mad:

Darn gold farmers!!!

[Tamgros]

Yeah, sounds like a key logger to me. To do something like that they would probably have to have your password. That really isn't Blizzard's fault though. I don't know what they can do exactly. They could give you all your stuff back, but someone else could act like someone hacked their own account, make some money, and then ask Blizzard for their stuff back.

There really isn't an easy solution here IMO. Hackers are just lame...

[Silverspar]

Your account will only be as safe is it's weakest link, and unfortunately, the weakest link in all account hacks has always been the player.

[Sir_Cedric]

Well I think after this experience, I am looking for a very good anti-virus program. One that cleans any keyloggers and back door virus off your computer. And like I said before I though I had one, but look at what happened to me. lol

[MillsUK]

Well I think after this experience, I am looking for a very good anti-virus program. One that cleans any keyloggers and back door virus off your computer. And like I said before I though I had one, but look at what happened to me. lol

I find a combination of windows defender, sspybot and AVG work well enough for me.

And regular scans of course.

[Hagon]

Well besides keeping your system clean, the other thing is to avoid sites that are already kind of in the grey area in regards to the game you're playing. Like gold selling/item selling/power levelling services, places that advertise bots and hacks for the game, etc. Many of those types of sites are not only trying to sell you that stuff, but they're trying to get your info too. (Not saying that's what caused your problem, but just saying..)

[TFO_KillSwitch]

i was tolled with wow you can download 3 party stuff to use in wow???. if this is so
then you probably it was that.
someone i know downloaded a 3 party item for wow . it Had a key logger in it
same thing happen to him he lodged in to his AC it was striped naked all the money gone. but he didn't get band

[wrussandrews]

I have to admit that this greatly concerns me. I have aided in proving that someone was hacking, but it is not easy and generally a staff member has to witness it.

I doubt that Cryptic will reveal any anti-hacking measures they take; to do so may compromise them.

[Sir_Cedric]

Well Bizzard sells a device, that gives you a new password from them, everytime you log into your account. Maybe Cryptic will have something like this for their game.

[Vorador]

Having your WoW account stolen does not have to do with WoW's security, but your own. You need to properly secure your computer. There is only so much an MMO can do.

The biggest thing that MMOs do need to do is to authenticate whatever a client is sending the server. Certain games like Age of Conan did not do this at launch, so people were able to create trainers that allowed them to teleport their characters, make them fly, and give them super speed.

[Awarkle]

The problem is in nearly all the Hacking posts ive seen i would say 99% of those people have shared their accounts with one or more people. Or "ill lend you my account if you go on xxx raid" or "we need a healer can we borrow yours".

They may be trustworthy BUT their computers might not be.

And the problem is Blizzard have no way of proving that you got hacked or you gave all your equipment to someone else.

The other issue is that if you play your account ANYWHERE but your home computer your risking keyloggers and hackers. Even wireless connections are not secure because you can snoop a wireless connection fairly easily. Even the codes they use can be broken.

So unless your prepared to routinly check your computer for malware / spyware / loggers OR routinly change your password then your going to be open to hacking.

Ive only ever been attacked once and thats because a friend thought it would be funny to send me BackOrifice (i was too trusting) and i hadnt removed it from my machine whne someone dumped my system32 directory.

Now i dont run anything until its been vetted, and anyone sending me attachements to my email address is instantly dumped into my spam recepticle.

Remembre if your friends want to send you an attachement get them to send the link instead. If its somthing really really important then check its not like "hey this pictures really funny" because those things are laced with loggers.

I remember goas view over account hacking, if it happens once fair enough if it happens more than once ban the account. Problem solved even if your innocent.

[wrussandrews]

"Assistance" programs can have key loggers and such in them. Use it and it sends account information. Next thing you know your stuff is gone and on eBay (I have seen this happen) or a "credit farmer" site.

I have seen this happen to a few people in more than one mmo.

[Sir_Cedric]

Hmmmmm I was ok for a bit using the questhelper, but I think you might be right on the ball with that one. As far as sharing account info, I don't do that. But it's between the questhelper and a couple e-mails I got, but still I am not sure were this leak happened.

[USS_Parallax]

Keylogger...

I have never had one because I'm pretty darned virus avoidance savvy. I don't fileshare. I don't visit anything but the most trusted fansites (like for WoW it would be Worldofwar and that one that has all the 3rd party addons). I don't open strange emails. etc etc.

Seriously, I hate to say this but people who get a keylogger just did something wrong somewhere down the line. It happens to everyone. I opened an attachment in an email from a friend and a virus attacked (killed it within minutes though). Or they got stupidly unlucky.

When this game gets into the Beta, probably beforehand too, I won't click on links that are posted here. If it's something I really want to look at I'll copy link location and see if anything is fishy or if it's trusted.

[dokou123]

Any1 played Silkroad?? in that game basically every1 is a bot :D

[dieuwe10]

The best thing to do is wait till they release the game on Linux, then you don't need to worry about key-loggers. As for bots, the game is a paying game, so no bots (unless they use the trial).

[Starchild]

My WoW account got hacked, now I have an authenticator.

Let me state for the record that I have never, ever, shared my account info with anybody. I always have AVAST anti-virus running + windows defender + addaware.

Whatever the scum is doing, they're doing something very cleaver and very difficult to protect from.

[wrussandrews]

My WoW account got hacked, now I have an authenticator.

Let me state for the record that I have never, ever, shared my account info with anybody. I always have AVAST anti-virus running + windows defender + addaware.

Whatever the scum is doing, they're doing something very cleaver and very difficult to protect from.

Could have been a random hit or you could have had some spyware that went undetected. No way to tell for sure.

[Kirausagi]

i personally think the game will be a save as posible , the weakpoint will be our personal pcs (not nesecerly)

[wrussandrews]

i personally think the game will be a save as posible , the weakpoint will be our personal pcs (not nesecerly)

I have to agree. If you think about it, it is a form of identify theft. There is a virtual market for in-game items, gold, credits, latinum, and whatever. This can be turned into real money, and the risk is probably lower than for most other crimes.

Since an intruder is not stealing anything real, there would be less of a penalty. I suspect that one day this will evolove into "theft of services" but who knows how long that will take.

[Starchild]

Another thing the devs need to do something about is unattended macroing. People start something and then go watch TV while the macro runs their character in the game.

Also, stuff can be added that gives people an unfair advantage. In DAoC people could get Oden's Eye, it was a radar that showed you the locations of everybody in the battlegrounds.

You don't want to get too carried away with this though. WoW has lots of macros and user interface add ons that make the game more fun and enjoyable.

[THORN74]

On the game side of things I hope very safe, on the player side, now that's hard.

I will tell you what happened to me, and I still don't know what happened. I play WoW for now, until I find something better, but one day my account was hacked. Sometime at 3 in the morning on Friday, someone got into my account, and stole all my gold, and good items. They even sold some of my soulbound stuff to get more gold, then they spammed on two different servers and got my account banned. So I am in the middle of getting everything I can fixed and returned with Bizzard, and to date the account is still closed.

So in STO, how will this be handled? I know it's not much you can do on a user side, but there must be something we as players can do.

BTW I thought I had a good virus scanner, tossing that junk out, and looking for something else. lol I was told I might have a keylogger on my computer, but I still have not found anything like that. Still looking.

So if you have a clue feel free to post it here. Hackers suck in my book, Why? Cause they got nothing better to do beside suck with people's lives. :mad:

Darn gold farmers!!!

did u ever buy gold online? or buy power leveling? A fiend of mine had a similar experiance, they traced it back to the company he bought gold from.

[Vorador]

My WoW account got hacked, now I have an authenticator.

Let me state for the record that I have never, ever, shared my account info with anybody. I always have AVAST anti-virus running + windows defender + addaware.

Whatever the scum is doing, they're doing something very cleaver and very difficult to protect from.

What browser do you use? If its firefox do you use noscript? A large number of keyloggers are put on your computer via javascript.

[Samodelkin]

Hackers suck in my book, Why? Cause they got nothing better to do beside suck with people's lives. :mad:

Darn gold farmers!!!

That's a common misconception, them are called crackers. (Or if they guessed your password, they might be script kiddies.)

Besides the password device someone mentioned for use with WoW, there is only one thing Cryptic can do to protect your computer. Personal computer security courses in Starfleet Academy.

Also, it's not your fault, it even happens to Star Trek captains, and I probably can't list all the times it happened to them. Even the Star Trek equivalent of Jar Jar Binks managed to hack Picard's Enterprise, that (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/The_Naked_Now) must have been embarrassing.

[Sir_Cedric]

No never buy gold, or power leveling from anyone. I do all the work myself.

Now you have a point about the firefox, I use it from time to time. I mainly use internet explorer, but I do use the firefox. But I am not sure. :(

[Vorador]

No never buy gold, or power leveling from anyone. I do all the work myself.

Now you have a point about the firefox, I use it from time to time. I mainly use internet explorer, but I do use the firefox. But I am not sure. :(

I'm 90% sure this is how you got the keylogger. You should always use firefox and the noscript addon(disables javascript on every page, but allows you to allow pages you trust). Internet explorer has horrible security.

[wrussandrews]

No never buy gold, or power leveling from anyone. I do all the work myself.

Now you have a point about the firefox, I use it from time to time. I mainly use internet explorer, but I do use the firefox. But I am not sure. :(

I am curious as to how many of these "services" are scams to gain access to your account. Maybe farm for gold, etc while they power level you? And when the ban comes move onto the next person?

[Awarkle]

Linux is secure because its the same as the apple mac, not enough mainstream use to warent people bothering writing viruses.

i still think that norton actually write the viruses i mean someone isnt that sad to sit and home and write them i mean yeah during the 80's it was prevalent with the amiga / ataris but really i suspect its the anti virus companies.

i always wonder how they get the cure practically as soon as it comes out. sort of like umberella corp they got the t-virus and the cure already but they dont let folks have the cure :D

they could go the route of warcraft / ffxi and have those random number generators that link to the game but i bet they arnt hard to crack.

either way just be safe on the internet dont download warez or cracks / trainers unless your positive they havnt got stuff inside of them. and monitor what your computer does.

Or back up your work and reinstall every 6 months. OR do a fresh install then create a drive image so you can always reset your machine to base settings.

I think its be safe be secure but i wouldnt expect cryptic to do anything if my account gets hacked and my toons looted. Just accept it and hope your online friends are good enough to help you get back to where you were.

[RanizMurjuri]

Your account will only be as safe is it's weakest link, and unfortunately, the weakest link in all account hacks has always been the player.

here here........


Games have been warning players for what is now years. DO Not GIVE anyone your account information. Even if it's the In Game support.

It's the biggest reason players get thier accounts hacked.

Do not download any 3rd party software unless your 100% sure it's safe.
Even those Macros that tell you the best possible way to get the Most XP off the area your in.
3rd party map downloads, often have trojans linked to them.

Other games you play, something you downloaded for that game could have been the culprit to your WOW account getting hacked.

[AraYm]

Probably some else allready suggested it, but I'm too lazy to read through these 3 pages now.

To prevent instaling Keyloggers or to find Keyloggers on your PC Antivirus software just isn't enough.
You should also install Mal- and Adware-scanners/blockers (like Spybot S&D and/or Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. Both're freeware)

If you got one (or both) of these running an up-to-date you should'nt have any real problems anymore

[Meehile]

On the game side of things I hope very safe, on the player side, now that's hard.

I will tell you what happened to me, and I still don't know what happened. I play WoW for now, until I find something better, but one day my account was hacked. Sometime at 3 in the morning on Friday, someone got into my account, and stole all my gold, and good items. They even sold some of my soulbound stuff to get more gold, then they spammed on two different servers and got my account banned. So I am in the middle of getting everything I can fixed and returned with Bizzard, and to date the account is still closed.

So in STO, how will this be handled? I know it's not much you can do on a user side, but there must be something we as players can do.

BTW I thought I had a good virus scanner, tossing that junk out, and looking for something else. lol I was told I might have a keylogger on my computer, but I still have not found anything like that. Still looking.

So if you have a clue feel free to post it here. Hackers suck in my book, Why? Cause they got nothing better to do beside suck with people's lives. :mad:

Darn gold farmers!!!


First thing to do is NOT buy gold or leveling services as these are often fronts for account stealers. They want to trick you into coughing up your account info then they steal your stuff.

Second thing to do is protect yourself from keyloggers. I use Norton Identity Safe for this.

[Meehile]

Your account will only be as safe is it's weakest link, and unfortunately, the weakest link in all account hacks has always been the player.

Not necessarily true. The Pentagon has been hacked and they have some of the tightest security in the world. Sometimes hackers can find an exploit that the players have no way of preventing. It could be a weakness in browsers or other such applications.

[Chillee]

Actually, IE8 is more secure than the current FireFox 3.0.8.
Both are well ahead of Safari for safety.

In any event, an antivirus is important, especially one that is updated regularly and has good heuristics. When you play a game like an FPS or MMO, you want the security to defer to the game to prevent lag or something hideoous like downloading an update right in the middle of play, so the firewall must be flexible.

Finally, while a lot of AVs claim keylogger and rootkit removal, they are not all equal. A virtualization solution like Sand Boxie or HIPS should serve you well when cruising on the internet.

Best Free AV: Likely Avira or ESET NOD 4.0
Best free Firewall: Comodo

[dieuwe10]

First thing to do is NOT buy gold or leveling services as these are often fronts for account stealers. They want to trick you into coughing up your account info then they steal your stuff.

Second thing to do is protect yourself from keyloggers. I use Norton Identity Safe for this.

Norton? Experiencing any lag lately? The first thing I always do is throw Norton off my computer, all it does is use a space. If you want good protection you are going to have to pay for a good virus scanner (forget Microsoft). Another thing is to use a Mac or Linux, and always use Firefox, I NEVER use Internet Explorer.

But like it has been said, the best thing to do is never give your account details away and don't download 3rd party software for games.