Account Security
 

Lately, the amount of account theft petitions has risen somewhat. If you are sharing your account, stop it. I don't care why, just stop it. It's usually impossible to restore you to the way you were before. No matter what I do, you're going to be worse off than when you started, at best. The process also takes a very long time.

There is a P99/Eqemulator targetted trojan floating around. It may be on a related website, in someone's sig, or part of a third party program distro you shouldn't be using anyway. Be wary of 'undetectable' or other grandiose claims.

These only account for a very small amount of the petitions. Most of these are the fault of the user. No matter how much you think you can trust someone else with your account, unless you can easily come within range to physically assault that person and succeed, you can't trust them.

This applies to everyone on the server. Get this done this weekend. There is no cause for alarm, but listen to me when I'm telling you that you'd rather be preventing the situation for 15 minutes than fixing it for 2 weeks+.

DO: Run an antivirus. If you really don't have one, beep me in irc and I'll get you a link to a good one. If you do turn up a trojan, get the file's created/modified date and timestamp from its properties. Then go into your browser and paste me your browsing history for that day so I can pinpoint its origin.
DO: Stop sharing your accounts with your guildmates and "friends". Right now. 9 out of 10 of the petitions that I see are people that just can't believe their "friend" would do that to them.
DO: Be absolutely honest from the start. Withholding information or bending the truth so it looks like you were innocent just wastes both of our time. I'll just figure it out anway, and if you aren't truthful with me from the start, I'm not going to invest the extra time to fix it.
DON'T: Assume that you are safe because you haven't been hacked. The related IPs have logged into a number accounts that haven't been touched yet. I've attempted to contact some of these people but we don't keep contact information for people outside of the game.
DON'T: Change your password without running an antivirus. These aren't being brute forced or guessed. They're logging right in on their first attempt.

I'll answer any questions pertaining to this, but any unrelated comments will be deleted. This thread needs to stay on topic and relevant so people can get the information they need without sifting through a bunch of crap.

Can you just post the links to your recommended antivirus for anyone who might be curious?

For a free one, I use Malwarebytes and would recommend it.

Malwarebytes is a good one, it's also what I've given to the people with the trojans, and it has detected it. Kaspersky is fine as well. The AV you use doesn't matter as much as whether your definitions are up to date or not. You can search online for comparisons of antivirus programs.

I use Kapersky antivirus. How do you rate it?

I use the free version of avast which is constantly up to date and I run malwarebytes from time to time.

is avast decent for a free antivirus?

Trend Micro Housecall is a good BROWSER based virus scanner that is updated as frequently, if not more, than the program based scanner/removals available for premium rates. This one is absolutely free.

That program coupled with Malwarebytes has protected my system for years and years with absolutely no issues.

Microsoft Essentials
Malwarebytes
SUPERantispyware
Spyware Blaster
Spybot Search& Destroy

Yes, I use them all and keep them all up to date. Also I use Firefox 5.0 with the following Add-ons:

Ghostery 2.5.3
Better Privacy 1.51
Adblock Plus 1.3.9
Adblock Plus Pop-up Add-on 0.2.7

After installing the Firefox Add-on's above, my Anti Spyware programs have had nothing to find for 3 weeks now... not so much as a single tracking cookie.

I've used Avast Home Free for years and have nothing but good results. You must re-register the program every year, but it's not necessary to use real contact information. Very light on the system. Auto-updates and a silent mode are available that prevents the popup notifications and alert sounds. It has detected every potential virus and I use it to scan client's drives for virii. The newest version has a firefox plugin that displays website ranking/safety.

Avast combined with Spybot Search & Destroy's feature: immunize, are a great combo.

And as Darkwulf mentioned, Firefox with Adblock plus is a great way to preemptively stop misleading or infectious advertisements from appearing on teh interwebs.

hows Norton?

Personally I hate Norton. Whether or not it finds stuff, it rapes your system to do it. I did tech-related stuff for a small period of time and Norton caused more headaches than it solved. I'm an AVG man myself. When I installed it, it was the hip free AV program to have. Not sure if that's still the case.

Good post, Uth.