GW2 - Poorest Account Security ever?

[Cthulhu 2020]

In the great majority of cases, a compromised account is due to some oversight on the user's end, NOT the company. In most cases, a company will give you lots of information on how to protect yourself, and even tools (email authentication, physical authenticators) but at the end of the day, it's up to the user to make their account more secure. I see a lot of people saying that they shouldn't have to go to all these extra measures to make themselves secure, and that it's the company's responsibility. When asked to supply some kind of sound logical reasoning for this, they tend to come up short.

[Deleted]

But nowadays, if you manage to get hacked it's more than likely down to the users incompetence.

Aye, after 13 years of internet usage nobody but myself has ever accessed any of my accounts on any service. I use different passwords for everything, it's also important to not use the same username/email.

And remember to not sit with the same password for a longer duration, I switch password at least once every month.

[Abstieg]

Actually, the worst thing that could happen is you get fired. IIRC, Blizzard's CS department operates in "teams" of GMs, all placed on the same row of computers, with a supervisor at the end of the row, and every week they have little meetings to discuss the little reports you can get (you know, that extra little feedback thing after your ticket is closed, that most people ignore?), as well as tickets they just pull up that they notice as either being really well done... or really poorly done. Blizzard monitors every action their GMs do, so if a GM fucks up, there's no covering it up.

People do make some pretty bad mistakes without getting fired, but I imagine they're only going to be... so lenient.

That makes me glad I fill out the feedback forms!

[DrakeWurrum]

Aye, after 13 years of internet usage nobody but myself has ever accessed any of my accounts on any service. I use different passwords for everything, it's also important to not use the same username/email.

And remember to not sit with the same password for a longer duration, I switch password at least once every month.

Ya know, not gonna lie... I'm still so terribly bad about doing that. I just get so tired of trying to make new passwords that I can remember, within the constraints of the maximum character size. :S

[mmines]

I'm a firm believer that if you get hacked, it's your fault.

Ya, unless someone or a group of people just wanted to hack you for some reason, it's usually your fault. But not getting a notification for an email change? That's just not right

[Deleted]

City Year. Did a year of service but didn't get selected for a second year.

That's too bad, however as a qualified teacher I can only say you didn't get selected for a reason. Not everyone is cut out to teach, you have to be pretty damn determined and be able to give yourself entirely to it. Often, I have 14 hour days where I leave the house at 05:30 and don't home until 17:30, and then have to do 2 hours of preparation (sometimes longer) for many of the SEN cases involved with primary education. It's particularly ruining my relationship, but I love teaching too much.

On topic, however, I'm getting pretty tired and wary regarding people's defense of ANet, they've dropped the ball here and yet no-one wants to say "yes, they've messed up", instead it's "oh but they're trying so hard".

[Deleted]

I'm a firm believer that if you get hacked, it's your fault.

Its not your fault that you get hacked if the account security is not working properly over at arenanet.

[Shadylol]

Actually, the worst thing that could happen is you get fired. IIRC, Blizzard's CS department operates in "teams" of GMs, all placed on the same row of computers, with a supervisor at the end of the row, and every week they have little meetings to discuss the little reports you can get (you know, that extra little feedback thing after your ticket is closed, that most people ignore?), as well as tickets they just pull up that they notice as either being really well done... or really poorly done. Blizzard monitors every action their GMs do, so if a GM fucks up, there's no covering it up.

People do make some pretty bad mistakes without getting fired, but I imagine they're only going to be... so lenient.

That's Blizzard, though, not NCSoft/Arenanet. Blizzard's (present day) customer support isn't really comparable to most video game companies' customer support. I highly doubt NCSoft would actually terminate anyone from the GW2 support staff for incompetence

[Abstieg]

That's too bad, however as a qualified teacher I can only say you didn't get selected for a reason. Not everyone is cut out to teach, you have to be pretty damn determined and be able to give yourself entirely to it. Often, I have 14 hour days where I leave the house at 05:30 and don't home until 17:30, and then have to do 2 hours of preparation (sometimes longer) for many of the SEN cases involved with primary education. It's particularly ruining my relationship, but I love teaching too much.

My hours were typically wake up at 4:30, leave by 5:15, get home at 20:00 - 21:00. Sometimes later if I had extra work. Plus, I was on a team that performed physical service projects around the city on weekends. Hours are nothing. My 9 - 5, while boring, flies by.

[cityguy193]

I find it weird that on the first page of threads a quarter of the posts are asking for technical help, this is due to the piss poor customer services of Anet, the account security is ludicrous but you'll get Drakwurrm in here telling you its your fault you got hacked and that you deserve it. I got hacked in WoW bought an authenticator never hacked again, in fact I haven't been hacked on my GW2 account yet but the fact is I dont have much defence against them if they tried.
A AAA game with Z quality security on release

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Is this site really so biased that this guy isnt banned yet? Literally flamebaits every single thread he goes into.

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[Dolsiac]

I have had a few guildies that have been hacked but in all fairness its always the users fault. Using passwords that were used on previous compromised accounts, passwords that have been used with other programs or websites and so on. With so many people making previous said mistake it is quite obvious why ANET has such a poor customer service response time as they are dealing with all the individuals who have no sense of uniqueness and have used the same password for all their accounts ever. For those who have never tried to randomize passwords a notepad and pen is very useful and can save you the stress of hours upon hours of waiting on the phone trying to recover an account. I dont want to seem rude but if you really dont want your account to be hacked you can prevent it for the most part, nuff said.

[Valek]

I think a lot of you are missing the point to this thread. Most of the people that got hacked are not upset about the hack. They are upset with the inability to get their account back. Most games, if your account gets hacked, has a number you call and give them the answer to your special question.

Here's a situation that makes everyone so frustrated at Anet.

My brother got his gw2 hacked and was not very happy about not being able to do anything except send in a ticket. Out of anger he then decided to start up his WOW account again. When he went to patch the game he found out that his WOW account was hacked as well. He then called blizzard and talked to someone. They asked him for his security question and he had his account back within 15 minutes.

This is why people are so upset. They need a better account recovery system in place. I just don't get how they don't have a phone number to call. Just my 2 cents.

[DrakeWurrum]

That's Blizzard, though, not NCSoft/Arenanet. Blizzard's (present day) customer support isn't really comparable to most video game companies' customer support. I highly doubt NCSoft would actually terminate anyone from the GW2 support staff for incompetence

*shrugs* No idea. When I still lived in Austin, I should totally have applied to work NCSoft support. My perspective is limited, and perhaps outdated.

[Deleted]

Is this site really so biased that this guy isnt banned yet? Literally flamebaits every single thread he goes into.

If you have an issue with moderation, take it in private messages with admins of mmo-champ, a public thread is not the place for that.

[Abstieg]

My brother got his gw2 hacked and was not very happy about not being able to do anything except send in a ticket. Out of anger he then decided to start up his WOW account again. When he went to patch the game he found out that his WOW account was hacked as well. He then called blizzard and talked to someone. They asked him for his security question and he had his account back within 15 minutes.

This is why people are so upset. They need a better account recovery system in place. I just don't get how they don't have a phone number to call. Just my 2 cents.

I think the problem ANet is having right now is simply volume. They are a small company dealing with a massive influx of CSR requests.

[Fenlnir]

When you're a teacher, there's an obligation to actually... teach something, and if you fail at that, you've harmed society by providing an unsubstantial education. CSRs just have to answer questions, and "try their best", while the worst thing that can happen to is someone yells at you over the phone

I'm not even going to go there. I've seen people lose tons of money because CSR's couldn't do their job. I've also been robbed, working as a CSR for Dominos, more than once, and in some cases, being a CSR (basically working in any fast food as well, it's not just on the phone) can seriously injure, if not kill you if you mess up. Teaching, on a base level, isn't that hard. Really, it's not. I've done it on volunteer work, so got nothing for it, and dealt with the same things. And really, there isn't an obligation to do shit in most cities for teachers. Dropout factories are hard yo.

OT: Glad to know that they're actually doing something about the lost accounts now. I just hope they do that, then fix pretty much all of Orr, so I can play my main again.

I think the problem ANet is having right now is simply volume. They are a small company dealing with a massive influx of CSR requests.

This exactly. But I'd wager that Blizzard has really gotten down the whole support thing by now. And Valek, have your brother change his passwords and all that for everything else, and run a virus scan or something, so he prevents it in the future.

[DrakeWurrum]

They need a better account recovery system in place. I just don't get how they don't have a phone number to call. Just my 2 cents.

Don't disagree with that, in the least, but I try to remember that it took Blizzard years to perfect their system, and I don't think their methods are transparent enough for other companies to straight up copy how they are able to recover accounts so very fast (especially considering how Blizzard employees sign a legally-binding NDA, which means their practices can't be straight-up copied). Arena Net is gonna have to learn the hard way how to make it work, and all we can really do is suffer the growing pains with them. :S

[Mendol]

Well, if you get 'hacked' is almost always IS your fault.

You used the same credentials elsewhere; that elsewhere got compromised (or was a phishing site to begin with).

I was attempted to be compromised with GW2 after it launched, but what it really was is my GW1 account still had my old email address that was compromised (likely at a guild website I signed up for years ago) as its login. They gave it a shot, but couldn't change my email address without me agreeing to it in the confirmation email.

I then changed my dormant GW1 account to use a new email address, and problem solved.

For what it's worth, I've never gotten a single piece of spam sent to an email address I've only ever given to Blizzard or Arena.net. I don't re-use it for anything and I've had zero problems. No spam because my email address isn't sold. No intrusion attempts because my address hasn't been compromised.

[Shadylol]

*shrugs* No idea. When I still lived in Austin, I should totally have applied to work NCSoft support. My perspective is limited, and perhaps outdated.

Well I haven't played retail in a while, but as far as I know, Blizzard's support is still pretty good (at least that's why my friends, and the intranets say). I haven't actually had to deal with any support for Guild Wars 2 (thus far), but I've heard it's awful, or just not there at all in many cases

Hopefully it's not as bad as EA's customer support... that was uniquely horrifying to deal with

[Deleted]

Teaching, on a base level, isn't that hard. Really, it's not. I've done it on volunteer work, so got nothing for it, and dealt with the same things. And really, there isn't an obligation to do shit in most cities for teachers. Dropout factories are hard yo.

I work at primary level, and I can tell you from the bottom of my heart it's hard. It's really hard. Dealing with 35 children, some of whom know next to zero English, some of which have different cultures you must nurture or their parents will axe your face. Dealing with a myriad of SENs and having limited budgets in place to overcome them. Teaching is difficult, there is a reason (in the UK) you need both a degree and a QTS to teach at any level.