Re: My account was hacked, I would like to share my story to warn others.
- From: Steve de Mena <steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 14:25:18 -0700
Bruce Grubb wrote:
In article <EY2dnYTHUP2wdL_bnZ2dnUVZ_v7inZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
Crazy Nomad <crazynomad@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
NBChick wrote:I will paste what I wrote on the Blizzard forums. Please read very carefully before suggesting Windows updates, ect.Why don't all you people switch to Firefox?
A week or so ago, guildportal.com got attacked and a trojan was embedded in the welcome messages of some guild's websites. This affected Internet Explorer users. Now I keep seeing people saying this only affected people who haven't updated their Internet Explorer in 6 months and didn't have an antivirus program running... well they're wrong.
I have a firewall running on my router, I have Sygate Personal firewall running on this computer, I have AVG Pro, up to date running, and I ALWAYS make sure my Windows updates are current. None of this stopped my computer from becoming infected by the trojan on guildportal.com. I knew a trojan had been downloaded, so I immediately stopped using IE with guildportal and switched to Firefox - alas, it was too late. My virus scanner picked up something and deleted it, and my memory is fuzzy but apparently, it wasn't enough. I also had deleted my Temporary Internet Files when that trojan was downloaded. Again, it wasn't enough.
Yestarday, I went out for groceries and when I came home and tried to logon to my account, I couldn't. So I tried to login on the WoW community website, again, no luck. So my wife logged in on her account and checked through the guild list when my character was last online. It had said 1 hour ago. We weren't even home at that time, so no way was it me. I called Blizzard, they restored my information and reset my password, and I think I managed to kick the guy back off my account before he could do any damage. All of my gear, bank items, gold, everything was still in tact. One of my trinkets from the bank had been moved to my bags, so he was starting to clean me out I think. But all ended well.
He changed my email address to wannabewarlock@xxxxxxxxx Cute huh? Considering I'm a mage. And the country changed to Chile. Anyways, yestarday ended in a day of calling banks, credit card comapnies, mass scanning both computers with everything I could get my hands on, and ultimately, it was XoftSpy that found the Keylogger registery entries and file and deleted them. I will not use Internet Explorer again, I won't even begin to say what I think of Microsoft at this point. As I said, my windows updates WERE up to date, I use AVG and that WAS up to date and scans every night. And I have TWO firewalls. None of this stopped it.
I don't know how far these guys actually take this, if they would go to the extent or using my credit card elsewhere and so on, but they had ALL of my financial account numbers, passwords and so on. I had to cancel my credit cards, changed bank passwords, everything. This just left me in a state of anxiety. I also no longer feel safe even logging into WoW. And I was one of the lucky ones...
Oh I also want to mention, he also had my email password! He was able to login into my email to confirm the email and phone number change through the link in the email sent to my account. I checked my email account, he had moved it to the trash bin, thinking I wouldn't see it, it seemed. So something for everybody to think about that got hacked. How safe is the rest of your passwords and information now? If he had my email username and password, and my WoW username and password, then he had everything else I typed into the browser since my PC got infected....
Because Microsoft in in Trust like attitude makes it harder than diamond to not use IE. Even if you don't use the thing for browsing Microsoft has set it up as the program that helps manages your files. When someone puts a USB drive in one of the PC's at the university (running XP) one of the options is to view the files *with IE*.
Maybe they are web files (HTML) on the USB drive.
Fine, dandy, both places use Firefox to do research anyhow. BUT we will be surfing along and out of a clear blue sky IE go out and throws some *internet* ad up. We will look and go 'What the..., we are not even using IE to surf. Why the sam hill is IE doing anything?' Because IE is ALSO used for file management.
Huh? I don't understand why IE would pop up an internet ad if your system is configured for Firefox to be your default browser. Sounds like a configuration error.
As a Mac user I look at this and wonder how after all this time the PC community still has not gotten a clue. Only an total moron would make a browser double as his OS's default file management system.
Since when has IE been Windows' "default file management system"?
And yet
Microsoft keeps doing this and people moan and groan everytime IE allows hackers to play god on their computer.
Even if you don't like Mac get something else than Windows like Linux.
Steve
.
- Prev by Date: Podcast: Reasons why PCs are better than Macs
- Next by Date: Re: Mac Hack (not!)
- Previous by thread: Re: My account was hacked, I would like to share my story to warn others.
- Next by thread: Re: My account was hacked, I would like to share my story to warn others.
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
