Account got hacked.

So, I'm getting a little annoyed here. I've played for what, five years now? And I've yet to be hacked once, so I guess it was inevitable.

Anyhow, I got the "You have been banned for gold selling" blah, blah, stuff once. I changed my E-Mail, did a scan, etc. Fine and off we go.

Now, it's occured again and this time the account has been Locked (AKA: You can't get on until you confirm you've checked everything and they've given you the all clear).

I'm not sure what to do really. Cancel my subscription and wait a while? Get an one of those Authincator thingies (That by all accounts get hacked as well)? Using scans doesn't pick up anything bar a couple of tracking cookies either.

Any thoughts?

Cracking an account with an authenticator attached is technically possible, but very unlikely as it requires both carelessness on your part and luck on the hacker's part in obtaining an authenticator code and using it before it expires (1 minute or so).

As for cleaning your pc, if scans don't find anything. Back up your essential files (except executables) and reformat/reinstall. Only way to be sure.

Meh, went and bought an Authenticator.

Being the little impulse buyer that I am, I got a gryphon plushy too.

Contact Blizzard Support and give them your account and password information, and then they'll be able to see that you've been hacked and contact you through your email with a link in which you can most likely change your old password and log in once again.

Sometimes they can tell whatever caused the hack. And then they'll ask you to make a full scan before you receive the email with the possibility of changing your old password.

If you haven't already, turn on your computer -without- internet, and then make a full scan. Sometimes it can't be tracked with the connection on.

Cracking an account with an authenticator is next to impossible unless the hacker is fast as hell.

Anaei/Vezullia wrote:Cracking an account with an authenticator is next to impossible unless the hacker is fast as hell.

Or if you're a stupid as hell.

If you need any gold or equitment Graham. Poke me.

Vect could I have some gold please? I'm poor..

what scanners have you been using broseph

Jomir/Nastor/Gannas wrote:Vect could I have some gold please? I'm poor..

I had 5k on Horde, but I bought a friends epic flying. Currently have roughly around 200g on alliance, and 200g on Horde.
The likelihood is you have more then me >.< But poor Graham well, doesn't with the whole hacking business.

I have 9g 43s and 2c from all my 3 80's and my 71.

Jomir/Nastor/Gannas wrote:I have 9g 43s and 2c from all my 3 80's and my 71.

Dailies!

After getting mah vroom vroom bicycle through them, dailies make me want shoot myself

Vectoria wrote:If you need any gold or equitment Graham. Poke me.

Do you know being hacked normally doubles all your income?

Not really. The GM's usually remove anything the hacker has provided.

I had all my stuff returned when I was hacked, But i've known people who only got a certain amount of their gold back, and/or gear. I even knew someone from my old realm, who due to complications couldn't have anything returned. 

Veratic wrote:Not really. The GM's usually remove anything the hacker has provided.

That's not what 25,000g tells me from my last hack.

Anaei/Vezullia wrote:

Veratic wrote:Not really. The GM's usually remove anything the hacker has provided.

That's not what 25,000g tells me from my last hack.

..Did I mention how much I adore you?
and how terribly, terribly poor I am after, buying my friends epic flying! 

My account was going to expire the day I got hacked. I got my account back about 2 hours after it was compromised, and had 2 months of game time. Blizzard didn't take it away :DDD

Also, I got to keep the 108 stacks of pygmy oil I found upon returning.

Eruadan/Gunnell/Graham wrote:So, I'm getting a little annoyed here. I've played for what, five years now? And I've yet to be hacked once, so I guess it was inevitable.

Anyhow, I got the "You have been banned for gold selling" blah, blah, stuff once. I changed my E-Mail, did a scan, etc. Fine and off we go.

Now, it's occured again and this time the account has been Locked (AKA: You can't get on until you confirm you've checked everything and they've given you the all clear).

I'm not sure what to do really. Cancel my subscription and wait a while? Get an one of those Authincator thingies (That by all accounts get hacked as well)? Using scans doesn't pick up anything bar a couple of tracking cookies either.

Any thoughts?

This happened me just now a couple of days ago. Six years. And hurhur, time that it occured to me aswell.

The son of a beech, sold all me rp shizzle, everything, took me gold and deleted me chars. When I re-trieved my account, the git hacked it once more and reset everything.

Ultimately I had to change the passwords of my E-Mails, then set the Battle-Net acc to a different E-mail than those of the others, wrote a lenghty letter to support.
In an hour or two things were solved, my ban- uplifted. And my characters were returned with most items and objects. Got my money back now after this week-end aswell! D: What a relief.

Happened to me twice. But I think I"m pretty much secured right now unless I'll get someone hunting me down personally =P

So what you gotta do is make sure that:
1. You dont have any of the crap on your harddrive
2. You dont catch any new crap from the internet

How do you do it:
1. Easiest, most effective and guaranteed result - format your hard drive. Completely wipe it out with formatting. Then install fresh OS with latest updates. Then install anti-virus(kill viruses) and preferrably firewall(detection of internet activity) programs. Also you must have malware(different stuff than viruses, often antivirus software lets it through) detection software - there are plenty of free ones around. I'm using AdAware freeware version, I like it.
After that proceed installing everything else you want.
Prior to formatting your harddrive you'd want to save all the -necessary- stuff to an external HD or usb-drive. Remember to install all the mentioned programs before you'll copy stuff back - it might have trojans or stuff copied as well.

2. Now that your harddrive is 100% free of any malware and stuff you can secure your internet surfing.
I'm using Mozilla Firefox with No-Script addon installed. It protects you in like 99%. It wont protect only if you purposefully click and allow a certain internet crap access.
Why Mozilla? No idea, because it has No-Script probably and its' reliable.
Why No-Script? Because it auto blocks all flash animation, video, scripts and basically any automatic actions on any website you visit. Of course, 99% websites wont function properly in that case. But then you just do two mouse clicks and allow that website (fully or partially, there're useful options) work. After that stuff will be working as usually. At the same time even if you click on some external suspicious link - browser will lock it down and ask you first if you want to allow it to happen or not. It also blocks pop-ups.

After that it's only maybe wow malware addons that could possibly screw you up. I've never met one. Just download addons only from reliable sources and only if you absolutely want it.
Guess that's it. With using the written above stuff I had a virus or malware stuff only like... hard to tell even, once a year or something? And even then my evil programms fragged it in seconds.

And about WoW account.
When you make sure your hd is free of trojans/viruses/malware/whatnot-bad-stuff - contact Blizzard and ask them to unlock your account. They will ask you to send them a proof you're the account owner and after confirmation they'll unlock it.
I've been hacked once, got acc restored. And then hacked again in two weeks. They nevertheless helped me out.
Dont forget to set a new password. Preferrably, everywhere you have passwords. =P

In game contact a GM for restoring your items and lost valuables. They usually return 99% of stuff. I'm not sure about the gold itself. But often it gets returned as well. It just takes time, be patient.

This may sound like I'm being a twat, but if you had an authenticator, you wouldn't of gotten hacked, end of story, and while Gharb is certainly correct, there is just no guarentee your wow account will be 100% safe without an authenticator tbh

Tashun wrote:This may sound like I'm being a twat, but if you had an authenticator, you wouldn't of gotten hacked, end of story, and while Gharb is certainly correct, there is just no guarentee your wow account will be 100% safe without an authenticator tbh

Considering I've gone 6 years almost without anything happening like this..

And, authenticator's aren't 100% full proof anyway. Spare me the lecture, which I expected to be given anyway.

Nothing is 100% secure. Nothing.