Bye bye Mask :(

[Fallstar]

So yesterday, after months of saving, I had enough cash to get my first rare - a blue h'ween mask. I was extremely excited, and spent a large portion of the day walking around and showing it off. So this morning, I log onto RS, and as soon as I do so, I get a message from someone I have never met before saying "are you still selling blue mask?". This immediately sets alarm bells ringing. I always bank my invent and worn equipment before logging, just in case. I go to check my bank and...almost all valuables are gone. Bandos, fury, zerker ring, d pick, and most importantly, and sadly - my coveted mask. All I had left was a couple of Barrows sets and a d hatchet further up in my bank which the hacker appeared not to have noticed/wasn't worth their time. I am extremely pissed off. I have spent at least 6 months working towards this goal, and to have it all taken away over night is extremely disheartening. Yes I had a bank pin, and security questions. What is seriously worrying me now though, is that my password was a rather long string of numbers and letters - in other words impossible to guess. Neither is it written down anywhere. I have Norton 360 (latest version) and this has turned up no threats. After running a full system scan - still clean. I then purchased another, more expensive security software, which also ran a full system scan which turned up clean. I have had to ring my bank and disable internet banking - which is extremely inconvenient - all because this piece of scum wants some free e gp's. Though I am not quitting runescape as such, the thought of all those wasted hours makes me sick - I have absolutely nothing to show for it. Hell, I could have learnt a language in that amount of time. I look back on the hours I have spent working towards this, and I think to myself, why? How has this bettered my life at all? Sure it was fun to begin with, but due to the limits of a browser based game or Jagex's incompetence, Runescape is a highly repetitive and often boring game. I did not particularly enjoy 80% of the time spent working towards my mask - I did it because I thought to myself that it would be worth it once I had achieved my goal. And it was - for 24 hours.

 

At the moment, even logging on makes me feel extremely angry with whoever did this. I may play Runescape more casually in the future, but I certainly won't play as much as I used to - what if I spend another six months working for something, only for it to be taken away by some jackass? What if the idiot actually changes the password this time (lol) and keeps the account? This is the problem with e achievements - they are by nature not physical posessions, and the majority of humanity couldn't give a [cabbage] about them. Which means there is very limited - if any - liability for their theft.

 

Though Jagex has only limited responsibility for this - the scum of society are there for a reason after all - I honestly think the recovery process needs to be changed. Even with incredibly secure passwords now, due to the way recovery works, so long as you have had an easy to guess password at some point in your RS career, your account can be recovered with relative ease. Overall, this experience has soured Runescape for me - I took every precaution, but still lost my account. Why should I bother again?

 

TLDR: (courtesy of Jeremy) - got hacked, lost about 250-270m bank, feeling pissed off. Jagex needs to improve recovery system.

Edited October 5, 2011 by Fallstar

[JeRambo]

you should add a condensed version

[Calypsan]

Dang bro. Sorry to hear that happened; although gotta say, Norton can't do crap about a keylogger. You ran Ccleaner, Malwarebytes, etc as well, right?

 

I actually bothered with recovery questions about three years into being a player. Being frank, I don't even remember them; but I change password so little, and they're pretty difficult to guess. But still. :(

Again, my condolenses.

[Fallstar]

I ran Malwarebytes, not that other one. Update: Thanks to a friend's generosity, I have re-acquired my gear, minus the mask. I have stopped using my laptop for now, going to get a knowledgeable buddy to check it out before I touch it again.

[Marduk_God]

Did you have a bank pin? If so, and they bypassed it, chances are it's someone you know... There is software to find that out, but it's slightly more complicated than a mere keylogger; and I doubt anyone would go to such lenghts just to steal a mask.

 

I got recovered for a blue p hat in 2005, and it turned out soon afterwards it was my own brother who did it... Apparently, answering your recovery questions truthfully was not as good an idea as it seemed at first. You can't trust anyone.

[stonewall337]

Not to be condescending, but being hacked is always 99% the fault of the person who was hacked. You got hacked because you weren't secure enough. Does jagex have [cabbage]ty CS and recovery? Hell ye. But someone can't magically remove your password.

[PiesVids]

Chances are you done something pretty silly to get hacked, although I feel for your loss, but dont let it get you down get back up and go earn a new one whatever it takes!

[Zerker_Jane]

Hell, I could have learnt a language in that amount of time.

 

Keeping the pixels representing a blue mask wouldn't make this statement any less true or depressing.

[highlanders]

If you wanted to become reasonably good at a language in 6 months you would have to study minimum 7 hours a day and study ALL day during weekends. You may be able to play for that long a day (of course, the game is fun and requires no mental effort) but studying a single subject that long everyday requires a lot of dedication.

[Crossed_Body]

If they didn't cancel your bankpin, you only got 2 chances:

Somebody who knows you did it (somebody who say you put your bankpin in)

You logged into a suspicious client that logged your bankpin

[Oxitron]

Blizzard have a great recovery system that works amazingly for WoW. Granted it's easier to get hacked on that, but the fact stands.

 

I think Jagex just use this as an excuse for people to play even longer and waste more money on the subscriptions to get their money back.

[Bruhx]

Honestly, I never ever believed it was possible to get hacked without someone knowing your password/bank pin. Just one person, even if it's your best friend who you trust 100%.

 

But recently, I was hacked too. I've never told anyone my password. They took my torags, money, and range stuff and left everything else there. It was really weird, it seems they wanted those specific things from my account. I have no idea why lol.

 

And they didn't recover my account, cause I had the same password. I go on the same websites everyday. Tip.it, facebook, espn, runescape.

 

 

Oh & I don't use a bank pin, never have, never will. If someone can really get onto my account, then I'm sure they can somehow figure out how to get into my bank. So whatever.

[Fallstar]

I had a bank pin, my security questions were five strings of numbers and letters, I don't know what I could have done to make it more secure. I use only the RS Official Client, as I think it runs faster than the website. So i have changed my pin and my security questions, and am using a totally different machine now as I got a new laptop for Uni anyways. Also, on average it would take a brute force program being run from a top end desktop 408 thousand years to crack a password of the same length with varied caps/numbers like mine. Again, i highly doubt I received a keylogger, but I am using a new laptop anways now. The only things related to RS I ever downloaded was the RS client from the RS website. And Tipit is the only other RS related thing I go on. It turns out that due to my Uni's firewall I couldn't have gotten any of these things anyway, which means it must have been someone actually recovering my account rather than hacking it. All it took to recover my pure was a single previous password, no other information that I could remember, so I suspect the same thing could have happened here - as though my password is very secure now, I have had easy to guess passwords in the past, as many people probably have.

 

On a side note, I started merching an item a top player accidently included in a video (the bought x/y message popped up in his chatbox :P ) and have now paid my mate back and am well on the way to having my mask back as well. So its not all bad!

[Bruhx]

Today, I realized my post was wrong & I did do something wrong and got hacked. I can't really believe how stupid I was. I got an email from 'Jagex Ltd' saying my account had an infraction, forgetting that Jagex never sends emails, I opened it, logged in on the thing and it said they made a mistake about RWT and I didn't really receive an infraction.

 

Almost 2 week bump, sorry, I just didn't want people thinking you could literally get hacked from doing absolutely nothing wrong.

[SwreeTak]

Sad to hear about your loss man. Sadly there is so much scum these days, just like you say. And even if you do your best to keep your account all secure it just makes the risk smaller of being hacked. It never completely removes it. I hope you get that mask back soon!

[Fallstar]

I have the cash for it now, but I can make a lot off this triple slayer/bot nuke day, so I'm going to be waiting till after that.

 

Merchanting is sooooo easily the fastest money making method I've ever seen.

[Sinkhan]

That sucks hardcore, but at least you have good friends and pro merching tips to fall back on. If this happened to me I would be basically screwed.

 

Though I am not quitting runescape as such, the thought of all those wasted hours makes me sick - I have absolutely nothing to show for it.

 

This is the problem with e achievements - they are by nature not physical posessions, and the majority of humanity couldn't give a [cabbage] about them. Which means there is very limited - if any - liability for their theft.

 

 

Consider this next time

 

Also are you sure you didn't:

 

Answer any suspicious e-mails

Share pws with anything other site/service

Share accounts

 

You may also have a rootkitted keylogger. Google up KL-detector. I've not ever found one, but it seems to do reasonable stuff. I like to run it whenever anything suspicious happens to my computer. I start it up, go to RS or something, and start typing random login details.

[Vroqren]

That really sucks - sorry to hear that. one tip though - while a long string of numbers and letters is harder for a person to guess, it's easier for a computer to guess that then it is for a computer to just guess like 4 random words. Like say maybe "deatheatpartyballoon" (don't use that one)

[HappyNooblet]

if it makes you feel any better,

I walked into the wild with 12m gp and traded someone so that they could see it, then i would run away with my money. Then i died by claws.

Smart huh?

[Altruism]

Anybody remember when Jagex said they were contemplating selling physical dynamic bank pin storers? That would solve the problem imo