Stop, Thief!

Phishing Scams Appear with Regularity for Guild Wars 2

Reports of email scams and account hijacking swirl around Guild Wars 2.

Screenshot

It was bound to happen.

Anyone who has played MMOs in the past is aware of those delightful emails claiming to be from the game's producer requesting account information to rectify an issue/prove ownership/claim a prize/help a Nigerian prince.

Guild Wars 2 is no exception. I've heard mention of such emails targeted at GW2 players for a few days and colleagues and Twitter followers confirmed to me in numbers that they have had such erroneous emails.

With the accessability that Guild Wars 2 has, there's a good chance that a lot of inexperienced MMO players will be taking part in the very successful launch, the very people most susceptible to phishing scams.

As ArenaNet has repeated on a number of occasions, be sure not to enter your information through any link given in an email. If in doubt, directly access your account instead. You will never legitimately be asked for your account info through an email. Never, ever, ever, ever.

Ever.

It does make one wonder why there isn't an authenticator for Guild Wars 2 as they are pretty much de rigeur for MMOs now. Particularly due to the obvious popularity of the game.

Have you seen these emails? Let us know below.

                                                              Scott "Jarimor" Hawkes, Editor In Chief

Comments

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Friend got this done to him with 25g worth of mats of mine
# Sep 07 2012 at 8:55 PM Rating: Decent
Just sent 25g worth of mats to craft 400 exotics for me to a mate and he claims he was hacked, he said he would send screenshots of having nothing but that really doesn't prove anything.

He doesn't seem like the type to do this though so I honestly do not know.

Will they be restored? By his account, they were still in his mail.
Yup was nice to see attempts are login resets
# Aug 29 2012 at 12:34 PM Rating: Decent
I had one password change request come through while I was working today, they have lists from some BB or fan site and the unlucky ones who use the same password everywhere are doomed. I do hope they have a secondary authentication step for non trusted locations soon.

Yup was nice to see attempts are login resets
# Aug 30 2012 at 9:31 AM Rating: Decent
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75 posts
Hopefully the email authentication will be going live today, but it still makes me scratch my head over the lack of an authenticator app.
Password resets
# Aug 29 2012 at 12:21 PM Rating: Decent
I haven't been getting any phishing emails, but I've received two, totally legit, password reset requests via email today that I didn't make. I've just been ignoring the emails for now, but it is annoying.

It is sad that they don't have any sort of authenticator with GW2. I'm personally not purchasing any gems because of a lack of an authenticator. So AreaNet is losing potential money from at least one person because of they overlooked one piece of account security.
Password resets
# Aug 30 2012 at 9:32 AM Rating: Decent
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75 posts
I'm a big fan of how ArenaNet handles themselves and the game itself, but I have to agree with you AnerSan. The lack of authenticator is a misstep.
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