My Dramatic Conclusion!!!!
Ewiges — Tue, 04/13/2010 - 18:34
Well ladies and gentlemen, friends and enemies, beloved group 5 healers, and face-in-floor fellow rogues; the time has finally come.
So I've been looking at this date for about 4 months now, and been thinking about this post for about a week. April 15th (Thursday) will mark the date when my account expires. As most of you know I've rarely logged in since 2010, and my WoW career practically ended with the end of Burning Crusade when I retired from raiding.
Now I'd love to keep my account up just to log in, say hello, see familiar players, and play peggle; however, I have not paid for a WoW account for several years now and Blizzard did not send me a Christmas card this year (Blizzard x-mas cards = 1 free year). So until further notice I will not be logging into the realm of Azeroth anymore.
On the contrary, it looks like I may be getting a free blizzcon ticket (though some of you know how every year it seems like that but it has fallen through sometimes). So those attending Blizzcon I may see you there. If Blizzard gives me a Cataclysm copy I will probably casually play again (got a free Wrath copy). I also read the forums daily so I won't be a stranger.
My Dramatic Conclusion:
So as many of you know I've always been the blamer when people got hacked. "Well have you ever given your password to anyone", "When was the last time you changed it", "Do you share a computer", etc etc...
Well playing since beta, my luck has finally come back on me. Although I haven't logged in for several weeks my account got compromised a few days ago. Knowing my account was expiring soon I keep getting these feelings to make sure my reoccurring billing is turned off. I got this hunch the other day and went to log into account management to be greeted with incorrect password. So I reset the password and try to log into game to get a banned notice. About half an hour later I get an email that says auto-banned for having possible virus/trojon/keygen on my computer as a safety precaution. The time of the unban was exactly 24 hours from the current time. Seeing what items were missing, or lack there of, I think I stopped them mid hack. Anyways, posted a GM ticket and saw an email this morning saying all my characters are restored with the list of items.
So what I can't figure out. I searched my computer and came up nil for virus, keygen, trojons, spyware, or anything of the sort. But even if I did have a keygen I haven't logged in for awhile. However, I have logged into SCII beta at least once a day which also uses your b.net account and password. But talking to people it seems like 'Brute Force' can get anyone's account. (So get your damn authenticators if you care about your account).
So thats my story, gonna proof-read, and see ya on the forums but farewell in Azeroth!
Sorry to see you go Wigs.
Tankard — Wed, 04/14/2010 - 13:51Sorry to see you go Wigs. Since you mentioned brute force I figured I'd explain a little bit about passwords and brute force. Brute force methods work by just trying combinations of letters and/or numbers. They can make use of a dictionary plus a list of "common passwords" or they can just go through every possible combination of letters (which is much more time consuming but is the reason why most passwords these days must be 7 letters or longer). So, keep the following in mind when you make a password:
1) Don't use any word that can be found in the dictionary.
2) Don't use swears or variations on sex words (like orgasmatron) or religion based words. You may think it's clever or funny, but so do thousands of other people.
3) Don't use combinations that involve personal info like your birthday or pet names or phone numbers you know. A good hacker will look up all your personal information and history and start plugging away.
My guess is that 75% of you have a password that falls into the 1, 2 or 3 categories above and that makes it vulnerable. Just so you get an idea of how lazy people are, here's a list of some of the most common passwords in use so you get an idea of how easy it is to guess:
123456
jesus
password
love
12345678
christ
juesu1
princess
blessed
sunshine
faith
test
admin
qwerty
letmein
Here's some examples of people trying to be clever that end up being really common passwords:
ncc1701 The ship number for the Starship Enterprise
thx1138 The name of George Lucas’s first movie, a 1971
remake of an earlier student project
qazwsx Follows a simple pattern when typed on a typical
keyboard
666666 Six sixes
7777777 Seven sevens
ou812 The title of a 1988 Van Halen album
8675309 The number mentioned in the 1982 Tommy Tutone
song. The song supposedly caused an epidemic of
people dialing 867- 5309 and asking for “Jenny”
So, BE SMART!!! Stupid passwords deserve to get hacked.
Well I had a 6 letter word
Ewiges — Wed, 04/14/2010 - 17:08Well I had a 6 letter word followed by 3 numbers. Both the word and the number were completely random and not used as other passwords. Guess now I need to start using completely random stuff like bi6x9ig3 or something.
i've used a brute force
h4mm32 — Wed, 04/14/2010 - 19:19i've used a brute force program if you want to be really safe use different languages. when you are setting up the parameters for what it's using for the scanning, the English dictionary, etc. you usually can't select more than one option. random letters aren't anymore difficult it just takes WAY fucking longer to scan. for example my password i ALWAYS use consisted of 7 chacracters and 1 number, takes about 6 hours, when the process is done it usually gives you a readout of all likely words along in order of greatest to least. try to add in !,?#,$ things like that if possible along with a rotation of words and numbers up to about 10-12 characters, case sensitive also if possible.
If you really want the final
Dufe — Wed, 04/14/2010 - 22:41If you really want the final word in how to harden a password:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)