Hacking/Phishing Prevention

breeeezy87

Seems like a server wide problem so i'll post it here as well.

PWI isn't a hackers first choice of MMO due to the mass amounts of bound end game gear as well as it's in game gold for coin system along with strict account sale regulations. The game just isn't all that profitable for hackers compared to other MMO's out there. Another thing to point out for the doubters who say there's no such thing as real hackers in MMO's, there are. What you don't realize is not everyone lives in North America, not every country has a minimum wage. Their lack of wages don't discredit their knowledge in programming and ingenuity. Basically what i'm saying is hacking even 20 USD a day can actually be a very viable use of time to a person depending on their living conditions. The reason they target MMO's is that there are generally no repurcusions as opposed to credit card info. It's not so easy to prosecute MMO account theft over international borders. xD

So basically there's 6 methods of having your account logged/stolen.

1. Sharing your info. (not hacking, just misplaced trust.)
-not a lot you can do other than not share info.

2. Sharing too much info in forums, (core connect for pwi), 3rd party sites, using same email for your account as you do for every thing else. (also not hacking, more of a common sense thing.
-Don't use same forum names as your char ID's
-Make an email only for your account and dont subscribe to anything else MMO related with it. Emails are very easy to gain access to.

3. Logging into 3rd party (fake PWI sites) with your account info.
-always make sure a site is linked to perfectworld.com before entering any account info.

4. Keyloggers: usually downloaded from 3rd party MMO related sites with ties to PWI. Small and simple programs that are very hard to detect even with a good, updated anti-viruses program. Keyloggers log all your keystrokes and email them back to the person who setup keylogger. They then search the keylogs for consistency and patterns (ID+PW).(Simple hacking tool)
-Preventing keyloggers is more about awareness, sure anti-virus may help the rare instance (i personally don't use one).
-Don't download files from 3rd party PWI related sites. ie. patches, .pck edits, bots and the MMO notorious "stealth ****".
-You can use a keystroke encryptor that works at driver level, not 100% reliable.
-Onscreen keyboards i've seen recommended but unreliable in my opinion.

5. More advanced tools that can gain access to your entire pc, control anything on your pc from anywhere in the world. These are most dangerous, these kind of tools are often used by people not only interested in the items on the account, but the account itself, they'll have access to your entire pc and be able to change all your account info, email, secret answer, password etc. The tool is nearly impossible for any anti-virus to get rid of on it's own once on your pc, and can lay dormant on your pc for months before ever used. Used by more advanced, ruthless hackers. Youtube link to see how it works, DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS PROGRAM! (removed for pwi forum)
-Like the keylogger more of a preventative thing, careful what you download.

6. Hacking the PWI site/database itself, harder to do, but no where near impossible. Deals with site encription and secret answers etc. Every account/character created has it's own ID, pro hacker could gain access to all info, but won't get into this seeing as there's no preventative measure for the players.

Goodluck everyone and be safe.