Thread: Account hacked - what steps to take?

I believe my account has been hacked. My password stopped working in the last few hours, and the reset page results in no mail to for the correct email address. I've submitted a support ticket, but it is after hours.

Any suggestions? My fear is that 1) password stolen 2) account email changed 3) all my worldly possessions dumped leaving me with several end-game characters butt-naked and broke.

I did notice to my consternation that the public page for my characters in mylotro shows how much money each has. This is an invitation for thieves to target rich accounts. I made all my characters non-public after finding this, but the horses are already out of the barn.

im not really sure how to help you for that but dont worry about the gold thingy on mylotro.... only you can see your golds, no one else can....

But maybe you could try to call turbine, if you're paying with a credit card maybe you can recover your account this way, but then again im not sure..... in any cases, good luck and keep us updated :S

Originally Posted by BINKLEY1

I believe my account has been hacked. My password stopped working in the last few hours, and the reset page results in no mail to for the correct email address. I've submitted a support ticket, but it is after hours.

Any suggestions? My fear is that 1) password stolen 2) account email changed 3) all my worldly possessions dumped leaving me with several end-game characters butt-naked and broke.

I did notice to my consternation that the public page for my characters in mylotro shows how much money each has. This is an invitation for thieves to target rich accounts. I made all my characters non-public after finding this, but the horses are already out of the barn.

Check this

As far as your mylotro page, IIRC, it only shows your gold to you when you are logged in. IOW, other people cant see it, unless they're logged in as you.

What is the timeline like for response from Turbine?

I filed a ticket yesterday (about 24 hours ago), and another today (a few hours ago). Going cold turkey on LOTRO is very disturbing, and I fear the longer a response takes the more likely I'll get back naked/broke characters.

Can you get into your account on the webpage?

This happened to me. Turbine took over a week to contact me after I submitted a ticket. Call. Do not wait for a reply.

Exact same thing just happened to me tonight. Hope I wasn't hacked. :-/

This happened to me a week or so ago. No email would get through to me, even after a request was manually initiated from the Turbine office. In the end, Turbine had to assign me a new password verbally, which I then used to log in and changed right after that.

My account (info, etc., including the email) itself did not seem to be changed at all. However, when I did log in and checked my toons, though it appeared that no one had logged into any of them since I was last there, a fair bit of gold (but not all of it - I only had about 6 or 7 gold total anyway, and a couple were left) had 'disappeared'. I didn't stay logged in long enough to check for skins and wood but I have heard that others had had the same issues and their craft stocks had been depleted.

I have NO idea how someone is hacking these accounts this way. Very strange. I have NO friends I talk to and even my husband doesn't know my password. I had not been on in a month. My account name and password are both different from any other I have on any other site. I checked and there are NO keyloggers/trojans/viruses on my system. VERY strange.

I lost interest in playing completely after that incident. Sorry it happened to you too. So far, Turbine doesn't appear to be too interested in looking for whatever is the 'leak' in security though I am sure they will work with you to get your account password working again.

Eek, I hope I won't find the same once I get in. My toon on my.lotro seems to have all of its gold. But this is really strange to me - the password I use for LOTRO is strictly for that game, I don't play anything else and I don't use that password for anything else. I'm also a casual player in that it's not uncommon for me to go weeks at a stretch without logging in.

Originally Posted by Aery-Chiasma

I lost interest in playing completely after that incident. Sorry it happened to you too. So far, Turbine doesn't appear to be too interested in looking for whatever is the 'leak' in security though I am sure they will work with you to get your account password working again.

sorry to hear that you were hacked, but theres nothing for them to look into, as it was your computer that got hacked, not one of theirs

I doubt all hacked accounts are done through the account owners personal computer.

Its not like key loggers and such are the only way to hack an account. Actually at a hackers convention there was a pretty big concern about a new method for intercepting secure information without actually accessing either of the original parties.

With companies trying to shut down gold farmers, and gold farming itself under fire it was or WILL BE only a matter of time before these Chinese/Korean gold farmers start resorting to desperate measures to accumulate their goods.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if they have found a way to intercept secure log-ins.

Originally Posted by Bannee

I doubt all hacked accounts are done through the account owners personal computer.

Its not like key loggers and such are the only way to hack an account. Actually at a hackers convention there was a pretty big concern about a new method for intercepting secure information without actually accessing either of the original parties.

With companies trying to shut down gold farmers, and gold farming itself under fire it was or WILL BE only a matter of time before these Chinese/Korean gold farmers start resorting to desperate measures to accumulate their goods.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if they have found a way to intercept secure log-ins.

They aren't desperate. This isn't new technology. It's a continual new crop of mmo players who share their passwords with their 15 best online friends and then cry about being hacked.

Originally Posted by Kyrra_T

They aren't desperate. This isn't new technology. It's a continual new crop of mmo players who share their passwords with their 15 best online friends and then cry about being hacked.

And their friends are? Stealing their stuff? Selling the account to gold farmers?

NOT everyone who appears to have been 'hacked' lately has been sharing their account info, or has a virus/keylogger/etc. on their system. Just isn't true. Something else is going on here, in at least some cases (mine specifically, but, I am sure others are as 'clean' as I am in that regard).

Sorry to disappoint those of you who want to keep blaming the people who have been compromised - not all of us made ourselves vulnerable, other than by having Lotro accounts. I also never go to the kind of sites where I might pick up a keylogger either, unless they are on mainstream sites now .. like this one, perhaps? Or my bank account? In any event, my computer has been checked over and over, and is scanned all the time, so that is not the case in my case.

I am 60 years old, not stupid, quite experienced with computers and games (about 30 years!), not a 'socializer' in the sense some may be who play games, and very, very cautious!

This does concern Turbine. Believe me, it is in their interests to do what they can to a) acknowledge there may be a problem they could help with and which is not necessarily the fault of their subscriber and b) ensure they help protect their subscribers if at all possible from future incursions.

It is my belief that, since they are now aware that part of the problem is quite possibly on their side as evidenced when a) passwords suddenly no longer function and b) no email can be sent from their system to the subscriber email address (despite the fact that, at least in my case, there was NO change to my account file, including my email address). Imho, they should look into why, in particular, that email issue is happening. We can't do it. THEY need to do it. Even a manual email request for a password change doesn't (or didn't, in my case) work, when initiated from Turbine. What does that tell you? The address was right. In fact, I verbally gave them another address to send to as well, they initiated the request manually .. and that never came to me either. I was told that the 'requests' didn't appear to hit their system (from their side or mine).

Now, whether that IS or ISN'T connected to stolen gold, who knows .. but it is a coincidence, isn't it. Password doesn't work. Initiate request for another one. Email never reaches requestor (despite the address being correct!). Ask Turbine for help. They try same thing, get same (not useful) results. They give verbal password change. Log in. Stuff gone but nothing changed on account and no evidence of anyone else logging in since last subscriber login. Interesting!

This is not a coincidence. I just found out today that my account had been hacked and gold and inventories emptied. I had the same issue with my email account (which I have had for more than 10 years) not receiving my password request changes even after Turbine had "fixed" my account. I finally called back after 3 hours and they asked me to give them a different email account and I immediately got the email response to change my password within minutes. I am also very cautious about emails received and websites I visit and very protective of my systems and network. I am in the IT field. It does appear to be more of a compromise of turbine's security.

This thread is being closed as the original question has been answered.

There are a variety of ways for accounts to get hacked. The information that we have been reviewing shows that the recent account hack attempts are processed in an ordered manner. This indicates that the hackers are most likely working from a list of known Usernames/Passwords. This type of account hack is generally easy to avoid, by updating your password(s) on a regular basis.

~SDM