♥ Avoid Getting Hacked! ♥ IMPORTANT UPDATE 12/31

[iEcstatic]

Dear hackerz,
EPIC FAIL, LOL.

[kage-ookami4]

finally an update. the new featured article is a real must read. your password reset security questions are a huge vulnerability because the answers are easily revealed through casual conversation. you'd think nothing of someone saying "hi how are you, i'm bored, i was just playing with my dog..." then asking you if you had any pets and what their names were. a pet's name is a very common answer. also high school mascot, elementary school name, grandfathers occupation, father's middle name, favorite color, favorite teacher, mother's maiden name, mother/ father's birthplace, street you grew up on, best childhood friend, favorite car, favorite historical figure, favorite food... all these things can easily come up in casual conversation and you would have no idea you just gave a hacker all the information necessary to reset your password.

but wait- gaia doesn't have these any more! they go for your e-mail instead. often people use the same yahoo or MSN screen names for e-mail and chat so they don't even have to ask for your e-mail. they'll hack your e-mail then just reset your gaia password which is sent to the e-mail attached to the account.

some things you can do for added safety are using a "secret" e-mail that is only attached to your gaia account and you don't tell anyone about or use different chat sign ons than your e-mail... but remember to keep the e-mail attached to your account as private as possible. this also cuts down on spam.

[kage-ookami4]

[Kitty]

I don't know how valid this point will be since it happened several months ago(i don't know if it still happens), but I did want to bring it up.

I was Keylogged through someones profile.*yes i clicked the little gaia smiley face to get there*

~How It Happened~

I was contacted one day from a user who said they wanted me to help them create a profile for them.(I had a few tek tek ones done so i guess they figured i knew it from there) I informed them that I don 't do it anymore and to contact someone else. They said would you just please take a look. So being the nice person i was i clicked the gaia smiley that took me to their profile. I saw a white page that ended up locking my IE. I had to close it and restart IE then I logged back on to gaia*yep that's when he got my password* and pmed him telling him that i didn't see anything and what had happened.. He didn't respond. so i went about my buisness. 5 minutes later I was contacted through AIM saying how nice my account looked and why i was hoarding certain items. at first i didn't believe them until they started telling me things that only someone on my account would know. Of course i panicked.. didn't know what to do since i knew NOTHING about keylogging. I found a mod online and they permabanned my account so that the hacker couldn't do anything with it. Then the mod had me clear my Cache' and run a virus/spyware scan to remove any threats off my computer. Once that was done I was granted my account back and changed my password. Luckily nothing was taken and my account wasn't any worse for wear other than the permaban being on my record permanantly.(but that's another story all together)

So now. I take extra precautions when using Gaia. I clear my cache regularly and I cut and paste my password for everything I do on the site. I also don't click on profiles of gaian's I don't know and can see they have only cheap items.Yes i know that discriminating towards new gaians, but i see it like this "Better to be safe and cautious than sorry in the end."

[kage-ookami4]

neutral that really doesn't sound like a keylogger. a keylogger is a program or a physical piece of hardware usually located externally on the computer. it sounds more like what people describe as a a cookie grabber, which i don't know a whole lot about... there is some more information on them in the links section. software keyloggers can be incredibly difficult to remove as not all anti-virus programs will pick up on them.

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and as a side note: PEOPLE, PLEASE STOP SPAMMING. IT ISN'T FUNNY AND IT'S AGAINST THE RULES. IF YOU'RE TRYING TO DO A LEGAL BUMP JUST POST "LEGAL BUMP" OR A SINGLE EMOTE.

[_xMx_TR]

Whoops! smile

[kage-ookami4]

mrgreen

[DJWolf3K]

cool can u please tell me how to get my daily chances and gold notification back!!!i think i clicked the daily chance and gold notification off now i have no daily chance and i cant see how much gold i get!!!!!!!!!!!NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!plz help me i keep trying to fix in preferences but it wont save!!!!!!!!!

[kage-ookami4]

Shinokuratomarushi

cool can u please tell me how to get my daily chances and gold notification back!!!i think i clicked the daily chance and gold notification off now i have no daily chance and i cant see how much gold i get!!!!!!!!!!!NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!plz help me i keep trying to fix in preferences but it wont save!!!!!!!!!

ask in the questions and assistance forum. this is probably a site-wide glitch, someone else was complaining about it earlier.

please try to keep comments relevant to this thread next time. off topic remarks are considered spam and only allowed in the chatterbox forum.

[kage-ookami4]

~legal bump~

[kage-ookami4]

LB

[kage-ookami4]

LB