All gold gone? You may not have been hacked. Please add to this thread

[Outstanding 10]

Greets

@Pottu will know me from the Nostalrius forums where @killerduki and I spent many a month arguing about Crestfall and Holy Resistance. For the record, Killerduki was mostly right. Anyways, my main toons are Outstanding and Cardinalsin. I played these toons on Nost for about 6 months on the PvE realm so I have as they say a little bit of history and I would hope, decent reputation to back this thread up. In short, I don't bullshit and have a level head and respect for Nost + Elysium + GM's.

So here's the deal.

48 hours ago I lost about 170 gold from my main toons. I have 7 of them, four of them have gold. Only the gold was removed. No silver was taken, no items were vendored, no toons were trashed, no bank slots were pilfered. Just. The. Gold. I have been hacked on retail, I've been hacked on Pservers, but the MO is always the same. You take all the monetary value, you vendor all the equipment, you check the bank slots etc. You do all this, because you have time. The owner can't get into your account while you are online, more to the point, if he can't get online on Elysium he'll assume that this is owing to server issues or DDoS attacks. Only when eventually they log on will they realise they have been hacked.

In this particular instance, I am of the opinion I wasn't hacked. I think this also includes a lot of other, possibly a few hundred accounts. I think this is the case because only the gold was removed. Interestingly, this also included the gold from my mailbox from selling an arcanite bar. Here is whatt I think happened. I believe that the mods created an algorithm to check any accounts over a certain amount of gold, let's say ~100 gold. They cross-referenced this with any 'suspicious' activities. Let's say the transfer out of 50 gold+ to another account or between toons in the same account.

Once identified, they just removed the gold. Pure and simple. This explains why the silver, which would have amounted to a few hundred gold over a few hundred accounts, was left alone. It also explains the surgical precision in how the gold was removed from multiple toons leaving everything behind. Think about this. If you have the time to go through seven toons (in my case) and just take the gold, then you sure have the time to vendor trash the equipment too. 

So why was I targeted? Well simple, the 24 hours preceding the 'hack' I switched professions and levelled up Outstanding to 280 LW. That was pretty expensive I can tell you. 50 gold from the toon and another 50 gold from my bank alt.

How do I feel about this? 

/shrug

I can understand that in targeting gold sellers this is a necessary evil. So by and large I get it. But if this is indeed what happened, or a similar scenario, I think those of us affected should get their money back. If not, I'm sure we'll get by but confidence bring it does not.

It would be helpful if people similarly affected posted their experiences so we can see what the parameters were (for example, how much gold was 'stolen' and if you did any gold transfers out in the preceding 24 hours, and if so, to whom (generic) and how much?)

Otherwise, carry on....

[Mimma 10]

Interesting theory, and you certainly got some points - especially the even amount of gold taken every time.

[Jamx 0]

Almost all my gold and everything sell able in my beg taking but only from my main. where do i report this.

[Kremath 0]

When I got hacked I was in undercity when I came back into my account. (Was not there before.) So I assume it had been for personal gain. Only gold gone tho.

[snippen 0]

All my gold Was also stolen, nothing else just The gold but my char Was moved to a mailbox.  (did not logout at a mailbox) i lost almost 500 gold

[Elenithia 0]

I lost around 120 gold and my second bag was deleted, but nothing else was touched... I'd like to add that I don't transfer large amounts of gold to any characters of mine, it all sits on the character and I've only got 1 level 60. I've made a thread about it and put it up on bug tracker but so far I've gotten radio silence.

Its extremely frustrating because not only is all my gold gone, but what do I do if this happens again? Just keep loosing my gold over and over and have nothing done about it? I know I'm not the only one who feels this way so I really wish SOMEONE would come out and say something or provide some sort of feedback to let us know they're listening.

[athero 0]

change your password back to old one and see if they dont remove your gear in the next day or two :)

because thats what happened to me

i couldnt change pass fast enough because of ddos, and elysium hadnt shared in-game option to change password yet..

[Elezium 0]

Where do you change your account password? Cant find it on the website

[Outstanding 10]

OK - Not getting much traction on this theory (sad face) so it looks like there are two hacks currently taking place. A very aggressive one where accounts get hijacked, looted, trashed and and either left in bits or used to sell gold (they then get banned for gold selling), and then this less intrusive one, where accounts are 'hacked' and just the gold taken or similar.

So it seems.

For people wanting to change their passwords, go to the Elysium Project Front Page

Then click on your Control Panel

Select 'Forgot Your Password'

You will then be sent an email allowing you to change the password

(I still find the whole thing suspicious but what the hell) 

[Mimma 10]

3 hours ago, Elezium said:

Where do you change your account password? Cant find it on the website

You can't change password directly from the Web, but if you Logout and then select "Forgot password" you get an email with password reset instructions - and there you can enter a new password.

 

[toniplavna 20]

They need to add 2 step authentication.

[Elenithia 0]

11 hours ago, athero said:

change your password back to old one and see if they dont remove your gear in the next day or two :)

because thats what happened to me

i couldnt change pass fast enough because of ddos, and elysium hadnt shared in-game option to change password yet..

I changed my password that day and haven't had any issues since. So I'd strongly advise anyone that has had the same issue as I have to do the same.