My account has been hacked (solved)

RSram

Logged today and all of my characters were renamed and the physical characteristic were changed. Anyone else experience this.
If after reinstalling the game doesn't fix this then I had it with this F*n game, I canceling my subscription. I not letting someone else play on my money!

Dominoid

You being hacked is a YOU problem.

ers101284b14_ESO

Reinstalling the game is not gonna help you getting hacked. Your gonna have to send a report, get your account back, change passwords and what not.

RSram

No it's NOT MY PROBLEM!!!!!

I use 16 character complex passwords that ARE NOT WRITTEN DOWN!

I do full off line scans once per month (computer is booted from AV disk), I never go to unsafe sites, and I have been going online since 1984, I have NEVER, REPEAT, NEVER been hacked PERIOD!

I am a retire network security administrator. My router is setup no to response to external requests.

Yes, its possible, there's always a first time with Day-Zero attacks, but I'm just tired of all the issues that I am having with ESO period. Its time to move on.

ers101284b14_ESO

See ya

SirAndy

Nobody can change the physical characteristics of your characters!
There is no option for that.

If someone has hacked your account and deleted your characters and created new ones they would all be low level. If the characters you see are higher level, read on.

There *was* a bug right around launch (if i recall correctly just before launch) were people were seeing *other* peoples characters and accounts.

Some sort of internal mixup at ZOS that was supposed to be fixed ...
;-)

babylon

Plot twist: It turns out OP was an accidental hacker instead due to ZOS bugs and was somehow on some other guy's account, who is also now yelling at the computer.

Redempti

Is it bad that I don't think this is a serious post?

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO

RSram wrote: »

Logged today and all of my characters were renamed and the physical characteristic were changed. Anyone else experience this.
If after reinstalling the game doesn't fix this then I had it with this F*n game, I canceling my subscription. I not letting someone else play on my money!

You sure your data hasn't just been corrupted server side somehow?

I remember reading after one of the patches that a player logged in to his account and actually ended up in another players.

Are your characters just different or have you been logged into a different account altogether?

What you are describing doesn't make sense for a hacked account..normally a hacker would just clean you out...

ers101284b14_ESO

Redempti wrote: »

Is it bad that I don't think this is a serious post?

No it's not bad to think that. I use no anti virus software, I have enough *** to start my own store, and I let a Chinese boy I didn't know use my computer unsupervised and never got hacked.

babylon

If OP is on someone else's account and ferreting around in the character select screen of some other guy, be aware what you're doing is like watching people when they're sleeping...creepy.

TL;DR: don't delete any of the characters you see there, just in case it's that ZOS bug and you actually ARE on another guy's account right now.

zhevon

Do you mean your appearance changed? Or did your get respecc'd?

Can the account owner even change their name?

However, something weird happened to me ... I was a member of a guild; I am no longer a member of the guild. Not sure if the guild went away or someone decided to boot me, arbitarily.

Draxuul

RSram wrote: »

Logged today and all of my characters were renamed and the physical characteristic were changed. Anyone else experience this.
If after reinstalling the game doesn't fix this then I had it with this F*n game, I canceling my subscription. I not letting someone else play on my money!

First thing i would do is change my password .

Second thing , you have to ask yourself, does anyone you know have access to this account ? A brother ? a sister ? or a friend who may have felt like playing a prank on you ?

Also , download this program called MalwareBytes, you can google it if you want to make sure it's safe but i assure you it's safe.
here is a link :
https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/


If you computer is being hacked and someone has access to your stuff, changing your password won't do you any good untill you get rid of the infection and Malwarebytes will most certainly do this for you.

Here is another program i like to use to get rid of infections .
http://www.superantispyware.com/download.html

It works pretty much the same as Malwarebytes.
Both programs are scanners that will find and delete or quarantine infections from your computer.

So yeah
1- get rid of any potential infections
2- change your passwords everywhere, not just your ESO account
3- don't ever give your passwords to anyone , not even family or friends

4- don't ever create passwords that are obvious to guess such as your pet's name or family member's names or anything like that . Also, don't use birthday dates in your passwords, and don't use your phone number in your passwords.
Always create passwords that include a mix of random capital and small letters and random numbers . And make sure your passwords are at least 10 digits long or more . I definatly recommend more.

The days where you could create a password such as Benny1978 and be safe have been gone for a while now . That password would be as easy to crack for any hackers as a box of cereal is for you.

Hope this helps

Draxuul

Tabbycat

Sounds more like you were in another person's account. I'd get a hold of customer service and not do anything to the account in the meantime... just in case you did get into someone's account by mistake.

nerevarine1138

I'm very curious to hear back from the OP. Character appearance changes aren't possible. Nor are renames. So what he's describing isn't remotely close to his account being hacked.

Edit: Also love that upon logging in and seeing new character names and looks, the instant assumption was what the OP concluded and not "How did I get on someone else's account?"

RSram

Sorry about the over excitement folks, but as a retired network security administrator, I have a lot of pride in my ability in keeping not only my systems secured, but many government systems as well.

I was in beta, but I never read about something like you all are referring to occurring before. I still have my three characters at the correct levels, classes, and alliances, but the appearances and names are changed.

I uninstalled the program for the second time now, and after rebooting and reinstalling the game, and update, all of my characters are back.

Once again, I apologize for the panic attack, I just flipped out seeing all my sh*t changed. I wasn't aware that this type of bug could even exist?

On a final note, a minor version of this did occur about a week ago, where one of my characters who does not have a hireling for provisioning, received an email from the hireling, but my provisioning character didn't receive the email. So somehow the data in the databases are getting mixed up. I was just a minor issue that just occurred once and then fixed itself.

Despite all the issues, I really like this game, but I am getting tired of the weekly and sometimes daily game stoppers that keep popping up.

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO

RSram wrote: »

Sorry about the over excitement folks, but as a retired network security administrator, I have a lot of pride in my ability in keeping not only my systems secured, but many government systems as well.

I was in beta, but I never read about something like you all are referring to occurring before. I still have my three characters at the correct levels, classes, and alliances, but the appearances and names are changed.

I uninstalled the program for the second time now, and after rebooting and reinstalling the game, and update, all of my characters are back.

Once again, I apologize for the panic attack, I just flipped out seeing all my sh*t changed. I wasn't aware that this type of bug could even exist?

On a final note, a minor version of this did occur about a week ago, where one of my characters who does not have a hireling for provisioning, received an email from the hireling, but my provisioning character didn't receive the email. So somehow the data in the databases are getting mixed up. I was just a minor issue that just occurred once and then fixed itself.

Despite all the issues, I really like this game, but I am getting tired of the weekly and sometimes daily game stoppers that keep popping up.

Sounds like you got one hell of a server hiccup, glad to hear you are back in business!

nerevarine1138

RSram wrote: »

Sorry about the over excitement folks, but as a retired network security administrator, I have a lot of pride in my ability in keeping not only my systems secured, but many government systems as well.

I was in beta, but I never read about something like you all are referring to occurring before. I still have my three characters at the correct levels, classes, and alliances, but the appearances and names are changed.

I uninstalled the program for the second time now, and after rebooting and reinstalling the game, and update, all of my characters are back.

Once again, I apologize for the panic attack, I just flipped out seeing all my sh*t changed. I wasn't aware that this type of bug could even exist?

On a final note, a minor version of this did occur about a week ago, where one of my characters who does not have a hireling for provisioning, received an email from the hireling, but my provisioning character didn't receive the email. So somehow the data in the databases are getting mixed up. I was just a minor issue that just occurred once and then fixed itself.

Despite all the issues, I really like this game, but I am getting tired of the weekly and sometimes daily game stoppers that keep popping up.

I haven't heard anyone else report either of those extremely strange errors before. It sounds like there's something really fishy on your end (no, not your security, before you get too agitated), because what you're describing is flat-out impossible.

RSram

The only thing that keeps making sense is that my entire ESO account is corrupted. I have been having problems with all three of my characters since the 2.5 update.

nerevarine1138

RSram wrote: »

The only thing that keeps making sense is that my entire ESO account is corrupted. I have been having problems with all three of my characters since the 2.5 update.

That doesn't make sense at all. How does your account get "corrupted" in that way? Why are you the only one affected? Why would reinstalling your client affect your account in any way?

I did a quick look at your post history, and (no offense intended) you've got a bit of a history of missing or not understanding some fairly basic/common-sense mechanics in the game. It seems like a misunderstanding on your end is much more likely than some oddly specific/impossible bug. I'd try contacting support about your issues to see if they have any insights.

SirAndy

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

because what you're describing is flat-out impossible.

Here we go again. No, it's actually anything but "flat-out impossible".

The server is keeping track of who you are after you connect and there are about a thousand ways a server could temporarily mix up that identity.

The simplest explanation would be a buffer overflow or buffer corruption on the server.

And since we haven't had any regular server maintenance in 4 weeks, those servers could have accumulated a lot of corrupted temp data by now.
;-)

nerevarine1138

SirAndy wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

because what you're describing is flat-out impossible.

Here we go aian. No, it's actually anything but "flat-out impossible".

The server is keeping track of who you are after you connect and there are about a thousand ways a server could temporarily mix up that identity.

The simplest explanation would be a buffer overflow or buffer corruption on the server.

And since we haven't had any regular server maintenance in 4 weeks, those servers could have accumulated a lot of corrupted temp data by now.
;-)

And the reason that it would affect only one account in this way? Or why a client reinstall would work?

If the game were logging us in to other people's accounts, we'd have a much bigger problem than maintenance could handle.

Evandus

There was indeed an issue where people were unknowingly logging into their accounts and being connected in game on another account. It was pretty wide scale back in April actually.

SirAndy

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

If the game were logging us in to other people's accounts, we'd have a much bigger problem than maintenance could handle.

Do a search here, because that is *exactly* what has already happened as i stated in my first post.

That bug was *supposed* to be fixed ...

nerevarine1138

SirAndy wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

If the game were logging us in to other people's accounts, we'd have a much bigger problem than maintenance could handle.

Do a search here, because that is *exactly* what has already happened as i stated in my first post.

That bug was *supposed* to be fixed ...

You mean an issue in April that affected enough people that the forums noticed? Yes, that happened. But the initial issue described by the OP is impossible (changed character names in your account), and the odds of the other issue only affecting one person are insanely low.

SirAndy

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

You mean an issue in April that affected enough people that the forums noticed? Yes, that happened. But the initial issue described by the OP is impossible (changed character names in your account), and the odds of the other issue only affecting one person are insanely low.

No, i mean the issue where people were logging in and they saw someone else's character(s).
Completely different names, class, gear and inventory.

Again, a buffer overflow or buffer corruption of (temp) memory tables would only affect some people, not everybody.
None of that is "flat-out impossible". I deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis.
;-)

nerevarine1138

SirAndy wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

You mean an issue in April that affected enough people that the forums noticed? Yes, that happened. But the initial issue described by the OP is impossible (changed character names in your account), and the odds of the other issue only affecting one person are insanely low.

No, i mean the issue where people were logging in and they saw someone else's character(s).
Completely different names, class, gear and inventory.

Again, a buffer overflow or buffer corruption of (temp) memory tables would only affect some people, not everybody.
None of that is "flat-out impossible". I deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis.
;-)

And guess what I wasn't referring to when I called the OP impossible? Please read next time. The OP did not mention logging in to another person's account at any point.

SirAndy

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Please read next time. The OP did not mention logging in to another person's account at any point.

Funny you telling me to read, how about you take some of that medicine of yours yourself.
The bug is not about anyone logging into someone else's account.
Go and re-read my posts. Not once did i suggest that.

I do, however, suggest you leave the technical explanations of what could have caused this to people who actually have knowledge of the technologies involved in building and maintaining a client/server architecture.

Because you clearly aren't qualified to comment on that part.
;-)

Elsonso

RSram wrote: »

I use 16 character complex passwords that ARE NOT WRITTEN DOWN!

This is a worthy comment that I want to make sure is noticed.

RSram

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

RSram wrote: »

The only thing that keeps making sense is that my entire ESO account is corrupted. I have been having problems with all three of my characters since the 2.5 update.

That doesn't make sense at all. How does your account get "corrupted" in that way? Why are you the only one affected? Why would reinstalling your client affect your account in any way?

I did a quick look at your post history, and (no offense intended) you've got a bit of a history of missing or not understanding some fairly basic/common-sense mechanics in the game. It seems like a misunderstanding on your end is much more likely than some oddly specific/impossible bug. I'd try contacting support about your issues to see if they have any insights.

You are exactly right about my understanding of the mechanics of the game. This is the first MMO that I just "Cowboy'ed" into. I should have read ALL of the all of the documentation before playing; so yes I agree 100% with most of your statement.

BUT, seeing someone else's characters (after logging in), experiencing severe lag at the point where I get 1 FPS in PVE, Not being able to group with other players for a month due to a glitch, not being able to loot, pets no attacking, snipe not working, textures missing, and etc. ARE NOT due to a lack of understanding the game mechanics.

I am also an assembler and C++ programmer, not an expert, but I just can't see how I could be looking at someone else's characters and names from the client side. II also know that all of the account data is stored on the server not the client, so I didn't think that reloading the client would work, but it did? Just boggles my feeble mind.

As an update, I just finished a session, and it was the second session that had only one glitch in it, so thing are improving on my end; hopefully this will continue. I had all addons on and the max video settings with the exception of the shadows which I set at medium.


So thanks everyone for the comments. Once again, I'm sorry about panicking so quick!

Draxuul

the not wr

lordrichter wrote: »

RSram wrote: »

I use 16 character complex passwords that ARE NOT WRITTEN DOWN!

This is a worthy comment that I want to make sure is noticed.

The part where he says not written down , yeah that is a smart move , but the part where he says exactly how many characters his password consists of is not so smart.

Unless he is not actually using 16 characters and is simply trying to mislead any hackers who took the bait.

It`s not smart to tell other people how many characters your passwords are made of because there are programs out there called password crackers and a hacker can simply tell the password cracker to try all the different possible combinations of letters and numbers of 16 digits.

Some of those password crackers are able to test over 16 000 different combinations per second.

And yeah , the article i read was posted in 2012 so it`s only fitting to think that people have come up with ways to make those password crackers more and more efficient so that 16 000 per second is probably low compared to the more recent crackers capabilities.

The point i`m trying to make here is don`t let anyone , and i mean anyone know anything about your passwords. Don`t even tell those informations to your hamster because it`s only a matter of time before hackers find ways to use your hamster .

Now i just hope that people know i`m kidding about the hamster otherwise they`re a lost cause.

Draxuul