Forum Bots?

FlameDark · June 5

What's up with the forum bots coming in today? Same thing happened earlier today a few hours ago, with three separate posts made by the same account, also in another language, talking about Whatsapp or something. The mods already deleted those but I see another one is happening again now with this Nexon person. But now there is a whole ton of them. Anyone know what is going on? This is just weird. @ZOS_Kevin

AScarlato · June 5

It seems some old accounts were hacked, since the accounts were created years ago.

Not sure why ESO's forum users would be targeted for something like this.

spartaxoxo · June 5

These are hacked accounts obviously phishing for information. They are pretending to be a help desk to phish information. Do not trust any links for such matters. Always go directly to official pages.

Please report them but don't report each one too quickly as unfortunately there's appears to be an automated block for further reporting if you report too many threads in quick succession.

@ZOS_Kevin

Do you know how long that block stays on your account? I can report again but idk if Vanilla thinks I spam reports now. I've never needed to report a bunch of threads at once before so didn't even realize that was a thing.

DenverRalphy · June 5

spartaxoxo wrote: »

These are hacked accounts obviously phishing for information. They are pretending to be a help desk to phish information. Do not trust any links for such matters. Always go directly to official pages.

Please report them but don't report each one too quickly as unfortunately there's appears to be an automated block for further reporting if you report too many threads in quick succession.

@ZOS_Kevin

Do you know how long that block stays on your account? I can report again but idk if Vanilla thinks I spam reports now. I've never needed to report a bunch of threads at once before so didn't even realize that was a thing.

Vannila forums has configurable flood control measures. It's been ages since I've used Vanilla forums myself, but it's usually only a couple of minutes after triggering it. Though to be honest I can't recall whether there was a default timer (measured in seconds), or if that was simply what I'd likely set it.

DoofusMax · June 5

spartaxoxo wrote: »

These are hacked accounts obviously phishing for information. They are pretending to be a help desk to phish information. Do not trust any links for such matters. Always go directly to official pages.

Somebody must be pretty desperate to think that someone perusing an ESO forum would be all "Oh, wow! I totally forgot about needing to contact that other support thing! Thank you for reminding me and providing that convenient link!"

Gabriel_H · June 5

AScarlato wrote: »

It seems some old accounts were hacked, since the accounts were created years ago.

Not sure why ESO's forum users would be targeted for something like this.

To embarrass and harass ZOS, in the hopes of getting money out of them.

DarkStrifeYT · June 5

Hijacked accounts ordeal. Always a scam.

Sluggy · June 5

DoofusMax wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

These are hacked accounts obviously phishing for information. They are pretending to be a help desk to phish information. Do not trust any links for such matters. Always go directly to official pages.

Somebody must be pretty desperate to think that someone perusing an ESO forum would be all "Oh, wow! I totally forgot about needing to contact that other support thing! Thank you for reminding me and providing that convenient link!"

If it didn't work, people wouldn't do it. It's a numbers game. All they need it one person that doesn't know any better or perhaps even just mis-clicked. Maybe a pet on the desk playing with the mouse while the user is AFK. They'll automate something that will do this thousands of times. It's like voting, or recycling: It's all about the numbers at scale.

Soarora · June 5

Sluggy wrote: »

DoofusMax wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

These are hacked accounts obviously phishing for information. They are pretending to be a help desk to phish information. Do not trust any links for such matters. Always go directly to official pages.

Somebody must be pretty desperate to think that someone perusing an ESO forum would be all "Oh, wow! I totally forgot about needing to contact that other support thing! Thank you for reminding me and providing that convenient link!"

If it didn't work, people wouldn't do it. It's a numbers game. All they need it one person that doesn't know any better or perhaps even just mis-clicked. Maybe a pet on the desk playing with the mouse while the user is AFK. They'll automate something that will do this thousands of times. It's like voting, or recycling: It's all about the numbers at scale.

The bot posts didn’t contain any links. Just a phone number and/or whatsapp number. Which makes it even more confusing. You have to go out of your way to get scammed.

DenverRalphy · June 5

It's not so much that ESO users are targeted, but rather users who reuse the same login credentials having one of their logins compromised. Then that information lands on a list that botters and spammers use to make their rounds across the net trying all of those logins they have bought/collected at each location. Or they get a users email login, then make the rounds trying password recoveries to hijack the accounts.

They make it around to the ESO forums every 6-9 months or so.

[edit] random typos

Sluggy · June 5

Soarora wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

DoofusMax wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

These are hacked accounts obviously phishing for information. They are pretending to be a help desk to phish information. Do not trust any links for such matters. Always go directly to official pages.

Somebody must be pretty desperate to think that someone perusing an ESO forum would be all "Oh, wow! I totally forgot about needing to contact that other support thing! Thank you for reminding me and providing that convenient link!"

If it didn't work, people wouldn't do it. It's a numbers game. All they need it one person that doesn't know any better or perhaps even just mis-clicked. Maybe a pet on the desk playing with the mouse while the user is AFK. They'll automate something that will do this thousands of times. It's like voting, or recycling: It's all about the numbers at scale.

The bot posts didn’t contain any links. Just a phone number and/or whatsapp number. Which makes it even more confusing. You have to go out of your way to get scammed.

In that case, it sounds like the scammers are about a quarter of a century behind the times

thorwyn · June 6

I can only speak for myself of course, but... If someone starts a bunch of threads in a foreign language, posting a random phone number in each one of them, grabbing your mobile and dialing that number, trying to find out what all the fuss is about is just the right thing to do. Anything else would feel kinda rude.
Anyways, I had a lovely conversation with some indonesian chap. Granted, understanding each other was pretty hard. But at least we exchanged bank account details and credit card numbers. All in all a nice experience.

ZOS_Kevin · June 6

Hi All, just wanted to follow up on this. We have actioned the spam accounts we saw yesterday and will continue to do so as they come up. If you see anything before our moderators do, please report the bot. It will ensure we can take care of it faster. We also have an escalation process happening internally when bots come in. That way, we can make sure to effectively ban the accounts.

Lastly, please do not engage with said accounts. Just want to make sure we do not have folks fall for anything malicious. Thanks for the flags and pings. We're working on how to better resolve some of these instances.

LootAllTheStuff · June 6

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, just wanted to follow up on this. We have actioned the spam accounts we saw yesterday and will continue to do so as they come up. If you see anything before our moderators do, please report the bot. It will ensure we can take care of it faster. We also have an escalation process happening internally when bots come in. That way, we can make sure to effectively ban the accounts.

Lastly, please do not engage with said accounts. Just want to make sure we do not have folks fall for anything malicious. Thanks for the flags and pings. We're working on how to better resolve some of these instances.

In these cases, is there a way for us to report the account responsible for spam posts? I didn't immediately see one, but it would be more efficient than reporting each individual post.