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Captain's Log: The day my Star Trek Online fleet died

Terilynn Shull — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-Fi, Events (In-Game), Game Mechanics, Guilds, Opinion, Star Trek Online, Free-to-Play, Captain's Log

This week I was looking forward to writing about all of the wonderful stuff coming out about the coming this May in the Legacy of Romulus expansion in Star Trek Online. Unfortunately for me, that subject has been swept under the rug while I write about what happened to my fleet during this past week and expose our failures in order to provide valuable lessons to others.

This week my fleet was "stolen." Everything that we have worked so hard in building over the past 14 months was taken away by one person, a person none of us knows, and we were forced to begin anew. The lessons here are hard, bitter, and frankly embarrassing to discuss, but they are important to learn from, and I hope others use the advice to avoid our fate, regardless of whether you're in a fleet in Star Trek Online or a guild in some other game.

Continue reading Captain's Log: The day my Star Trek Online fleet died

Captain's Log: The day my Star Trek Online fleet died originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not So Massively: Merry Christmas, Frostivus, Greeviling, and Snowdown!

Brendan Drain — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Sci-Fi, Trailers, Video, Game Mechanics, New Titles, Patches, PvP, News Items, PvE, Dev Diaries, Not So Massively, Sandbox, MOBA, League of Legends, Diablo III

Dota 2's Frostivus holiday festival turned sour when Greevils stole all the presents, and you can hunt them down for both naughty and nice rewards. Heroes of Newerth was hit by a real-life Grinch this week as hackers breached the game's security and stole the password database, but developers pressed on with their Christmas update and the release of new hero Lodestone. League of Legends got in the Snowdown spirit with a spotlight on new melee initiator Vi, and Riot Games revealed plans to slow down new champion releases and make older champions significantly cheaper.

Elite: Dangerous faces a tense holiday season, with over £300,000 ($484,000) still left to raise on its Kickstarter campaign, which is currently trending to end at a nail-biting 90%. The wealth of recent video updates and trailers should help convince people to pledge before it's too late. Diablo III's first big item duplication scandal reared its ugly head when as it emerged that some Taiwanese players had been abusing the anti-theft rollback support that's meant to protect people when their accounts are hacked. A short interview with Jay Wilson from the Spike Video Game Awards also emerged this week, and in it Jay promised that 2013 will be a big year for the game.

Continue reading Not So Massively: Merry Christmas, Frostivus, Greeviling, and Snowdown!

Not So Massively: Merry Christmas, Frostivus, Greeviling, and Snowdown! originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blizzard lowers the boom on Diablo III cheaters

Justin Olivetti — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Bugs, Legal, Diablo III

Blizzard's had all it can stands, and it can stands no more. The studio is taking aggressive action against botters and cheaters in Diablo III, reporting that it's gone through "several rounds of account bans" against such players.

The studio also used the ban announcement as an excuse to clarify its position on hacks and third-party software. If you're curious about what steps over the line that Blizzard has in mind, wonder no longer. Beyond allowing some players to get away with an unfair advantage over others, cheat programs reportedly cause instability and performance issues with client software and Battle.net at large.

"We strongly recommend that you avoid using any third-party software which interacts with Diablo III," Blizzard posted, "even if you are accessing that software from a reputable third-party site-as doing so can result in permanent ban from the game."

Blizzard lowers the boom on Diablo III cheaters originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 09 Nov 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blizzard denies Diablo III authenticator hacking claims

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Launches, Legal, Diablo III

We've been following the mass reports of hackers bypassing passwords and authenticators to rob Diablo III accounts blind, and now we have a new twist on the story. While Blizzard confirmed "an increase in reports of individual account compromises," the studio says it has no hard evidence that hackers have found a way to skirt around the authentication system.

Community Manager Bashiok said that the company is taking the claims "extremely seriously" and is investigating the rash of account compromises. "Despite the claims and theories being made, we have yet to find any situations in which a person's account was not compromised through traditional means of someone else logging into their account through the use of their password," he said. "While the authenticator isn't a 100% guarantee of account security, we have yet to investigate a compromise report in which an authenticator was attached beforehand."

Blizzard is assisting compromised customers by restoring stolen items and rolling back their accounts. The studio has a post up on its forums to help players protect their accounts and get assistance if theft occurs.

Blizzard denies Diablo III authenticator hacking claims originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 22 May 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Anonymous declares war on Sony over SOPA support

Justin Olivetti — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST

Sony may once again be the target of hacking attacks, but at least this time the company has a little heads-up in advance. The secretive organization of hackers known as Anonymous released a video declaring its intent to strike at Sony over Sony's support of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

The video contains your usual vague proclamations of doom and ego-boosting statements, although with Anonymous' past activity, it will be hard to ignore the threat. The collective of hackers were thought to be at least partially responsible for the attack on Sony earlier this year that forced the company to take its network and games offline.

SOPA is a proposed U.S. bill that would allow law enforcement to combat pirated digital goods by shutting down websites and blocking payments to site owners. While the bill is supported by Hollywood, the music industry, and some major game companies, SOPA opposers worry that the bill will infringe on First Amendment rights and permanently harm the internet.

You can watch the Anonymous declaration after the jump.

Continue reading Anonymous declares war on Sony over SOPA support

Anonymous declares war on Sony over SOPA support originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SOE takes services offline due to serious issue

Justin Olivetti — Mon, 02 May 2011 09:30:00 EST

Filed under: MMO Industry, News Items, Miscellaneous

This Monday morning, Sony Online Entertainment customers are waking up to discover that all of their games' services are down. Apparently, the company has discovered a serious issue while following up with the previous weeks' hacker intrusion and is taking steps to rectify it.

The Station.com posted the following notice:

Dear valued SOE Customers,

We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily. In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately. We will provide an update later today (Monday).

We'll update this story as it develops.

SOE takes services offline due to serious issue originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 02 May 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PlayStation Network credit card info appears to be safe: 'No unauthorized activity relating to Sony'

Justin Olivetti — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: MMO Industry, Legal, Miscellaneous

It looks like the beleaguered Sony finally caught a break. The company, which has struggled for over a week following a hacker attack that stole massive amounts of player information, says that it looks as though user credit card information remains secure and encrypted. It turns out that Sony had encrypted some personal info but not all of it.

Gamespot also reports that several financial companies, including MasterCard, WellsFargo and American Express, have witnessed "no unauthorized activity relating to Sony."

Sony's Patrick Seybold passed along the positive news: "The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken. The personal data table, which is a separate data set, was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack."

Sony's PlayStation Network is still offline while it's rebuilt with a higher level of security. The company saw its shares drop 4.5% today on the Tokyo exchange to $27.71.

PlayStation Network credit card info appears to be safe: 'No unauthorized activity relating to Sony' originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Security 'RIFT' has closed for iOS

Larry Everett — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Game Mechanics, RIFT

The developers at Trion Worlds have given the players an active way to close the RIFT in security for the iPhone. As reported a couple of weeks ago, RIFT is following in World of Warcraft's footsteps with a mobile authenticator. Most of the time, being called a clone of WoW is a negative mark on the game, but in this case, it's a matter of personal security.

RIFT launched its authenticator on the Android platform first, giving those customers more peace of mind in the wake of reports of holes in the game's security. Today, Community Manager Erick "Zann" Adams posted that the authenticator is now available for the iPhone and other iOS products as well.

Because of the growing popularity of MMOs and other online games, these extra security measures are more than welcomed by the gaming community. If you are a RIFT player, then you can rush to the iTunes store or the Android market to pick up the authenticator or jump to the RIFT game site to find out more information.

Security 'RIFT' has closed for iOS originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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"Solid one-two punch": Trion responds to account hacks

Justin Olivetti — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 23:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Bugs, Game Mechanics, Interviews, RIFT

The saga of RIFT's account security woes continues, as Trion World's Scott Hartsman responded to the hacker attempts, reassuring fans curious about what steps were being taken to secure their accounts.

Citing "constant attacks" since the launch of RIFT that have impacted 1% of accounts, Hartsman said that the team is blocking hackers and botnets as quickly as they are identified, but that this will also be an ongoing process.

"Both the login fix and the Coin Lock addition have been doing their part in signficantly reducing overall incidents over the last 18 hours," Hartsman wrote. "Neither one is a silver bullet, but so far it is looking to be a solid one-two punch for the weekend."

According to his post, Trion will be hiring additional staff to tackle the problem, and is working on a "two-factor authentication" process for the future.

Hartsman also praised the efforts of the player who brought a serious log-in vulnerability to the team's attention. ZAM tracked down the player for an interview, who himself had his account hacked in early March. The player is an "ethical hacker" who owns a security software company and realized that these hacks were not the fault of the player, but an exploit that had been discovered.

"Solid one-two punch": Trion responds to account hacks originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 19 Mar 2011 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mortal Online busting out tremendous banhammer on hackers

Krystalle Voecks — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Exploits, Game Mechanics, PvP, News Items

Hackers beware. The team at Star Vault have their eyes on you, and it's time to stop any and all shenanigans you've got going on in Mortal Online. Or else, you say? Or else the banhammer awaits you -- and according to their most recent update, it means an instant, permanent ban that could leave you staring at the login screen in frustration.

According to a post by Maerlyn on the Mortal Online forums, there is currently no set date on when software monitoring will come into play, or even what method they'll use to monitor for third-party applications or changes in the game files that are being reported. A follow-up posting by Tazaterra in the same thread indicates that anyone who has modified game files needs to stop at this time.

With the game still being tweaked pending release, we're glad to see the team at Star Vault is taking a proactive stance on this before the floodgates officially open. In a game where PvP is everything, players need to know that anyone using exploits, hacks, bots or the like to tip the game balance will be dealt with swiftly and before it causes game imbalances.

[via TTH]

Mortal Online busting out tremendous banhammer on hackers originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Superthreats: Outlaw Planet and Generation Exile

James Egan — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Real-Life, Sci-Fi, Video, Culture, Economy, Events (Real-World), Events (In-Game), MMO Industry, New Titles, Roleplaying

Outlaw Planet Superthreat

"In 2019, the mobile internet and sensor networks we rely on to hold our societies together are being hacked, griefed, and gamed."

The effects of technology turned against us impacts the democratic process, social networks, and every institution connected to the internet. Sophisticated criminal groups employ 'transparency bombs' in online banking attacks (and "World of Starcraft" players no less). The target financial institutions are major players in the virtual currency market, but the issues resulting from this undermined security affect private citizens as well as the banks.

Superstruct Challenge: How can we come together to secure our assets, both real and virtual?

Continue reading Superthreats: Outlaw Planet and Generation Exile

Superthreats: Outlaw Planet and Generation Exile originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW Insider interviews Blizzard on security

Adrian Bott — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, MMO Industry

Big concerns require authoritative answers, and to get those, you often have to go to the top. That's what our friends at WoW Insider have recently been able to do, getting answers straight from Blizzard, the masters of World of Warcraft.

As issues go, it's pretty damn big: not concerns about class balance or content, but about the basic security of your account, the protection currently being provided against hacking, and what the Authenticator key actually does.

Blizzard, who actively sought an interview with WoW Insider following a (since contested) report of a customer allegedly having his account hacked while using one of the new Authenticators, explain the specific steps the technology takes to ensure security. They also address player concerns about how reliable the Authenticator is. The bottom line: '... we have no verified occurrences of an account being compromised that has a Blizzard Authenticator attached to it.' The full interview can be read at WoW Insider.

For those that don't know, the Authenticator is an optional item (now available through the Blizzard store) that adds an extra layer of security to one or more World of Warcraft accounts. 'It supplies a random digital code that must be entered at login, providing an additional layer of security to help prevent unauthorized account access. Each code is valid for a limited time and can only be used once, so the Blizzard Authenticator must be in the possession of the account holder to log in to the account.'

Continue reading WoW Insider interviews Blizzard on security

WoW Insider interviews Blizzard on security originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RF Online server rollback combats cheaters and 500% inflation

James Egan — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Exploits, RF Online, News Items, Free-to-Play

RF Online in the Philippines recently had serious issues with dupe hacks, prompting an unannounced rollback of the servers. PlayNoEvil writes that the operator of RF Online for the Philippines, Level Up Games, discovered a dupe exploit and tried to purge it from the servers as well as those who used it. However due to time constraints with unraveling the intricacies of the exploit, the company decided to roll back the game to a point before the exploit was used.

Level Up Games issued a statement on the problem: Based on DB evidence, numbers as well as feedback from the community, the GMs, the Vanguards and also from our field agents, there was an oversupply of in-game currency and gold - as high as 500 %. GMTristan of RF Online Philippines clarified the situation further on his blog:

Continue reading RF Online server rollback combats cheaters and 500% inflation

RF Online server rollback combats cheaters and 500% inflation originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How easily can your account be hacked?

Shawn Schuster — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:30:00 EST

Filed under: Game Mechanics, Legal, Education

You've probably heard the stories before. A friend's roommate's cousin once got his WoW account hacked. The hacker took all of his character's items and gold, and left a few naked, violated characters to fend for themselves. It conjures the same feelings as coming home to find your house has been broken into, or walking out to the driveway in the morning to find your car is gone.

There has been a recent phenomenon of hacked accounts lately, more than ever. WoW had a recent problem with Xfire, and several people got their accounts hacked. The leader of Rebel Rising [rawr], one of the top PvP guilds in Guild Wars just got their account hacked and the hacker disbanded the entire [rawr] alliance and deleted the guild. This is a guild that had worked for years to establish itself in the GW PvP community, including its very own tournament cup named after them. But the fact that it can all go away so easily, as it did from one hacker, makes us aware of the inherent dangers and vulnerabilities we face in this environment.

Continue reading How easily can your account be hacked?

How easily can your account be hacked? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 27 May 2008 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Virtual items trader receives Red Herring award

James Egan — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business Models, Economy, Events (Real-World), MMO Industry, News Items

Red Herring has named Live Gamer, a virtual items trading company, as one of the top 100 privately held companies in North America in 2008. The annual Red Herring 100 North America Awards are given to companies identified as the most promising tech startups.

Love it or hate it, RMT is not going away. The virtual trading economy, which includes avatars, items and in-game currencies, is estimated to be a market worth more than USD 1.8 billion. Much of this trading takes place on the black market, exposing buyers and sellers alike to potential fraud. Live Gamer aims to remove the sketchiness from virtual item trades, enabling secure player-to-player trading while taking business away from some of the banes of the MMO world: virtual item thieves.

Continue reading Virtual items trader receives Red Herring award

Virtual items trader receives Red Herring award originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 22 May 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Koster writes "how to hack an MMO"

Samuel Axon — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:30:00 EST

Filed under: News Items

Have you ever wanted to walk through walls in MMO? How about telepathically sense the locations of all the good drops in a zone, or make invisible things very, very visible?

A blog post by game designer Raph Koster (of Ultima Online and now Metaplace fame) will tell you how! Admittedly, Koster doesn't really go into much detail. Also, he's trying to help developers avoid hacking problems, not giving inside secret tips to hackers. It's still an interesting read, though!

He lays out an overview of the various design choices developers make that are exploited by hackers. For example, some developers might choose to trust the client to handle collision detection to reduce lag and increase gameplay responsiveness. Well, a clever hacker can make the client report to the server with false collision information, allowing that hacker to move through walls. It turns out that most designers take a middle-of-the-road approach, meaning that, as Koster puts it: "only bad-ass hackers are cheating, instead of damn near everyone."

Koster writes "how to hack an MMO" originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Account thieves make mainstream news

Kyle Horner — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Exploits, News Items

Some determined hackers have gone to great lengths to steal MMO accounts. So much so that they've managed to get noticed by the mainstream news outlets. We guess that's what happens when you hack over 10,000 websites just to get your hands on somebody else's MMO account.

Essentially, these guys hacked into thousands of websites and added a small amount of code that redirects users into an invisible attack from some China-based servers. Apparently if you've got your antivirus program of choice up-to-date you shouldn't worry. Although the article points out that some of these attacks are directed at ActiveX controls, so update that as well if you haven't recently.

We all know how terrible it would be to have our accounts hacked into and stolen. Many of us spend hundreds of hours in our favorite worlds, which many of us also pay for through our credit cards. Strangely enough, Lord of the Rings Online is mentioned as one of the games targeted by the hackers.

[via TenTonHammer]

Account thieves make mainstream news originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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