So, how DO some of these phishers get your information?

i use texmod: no problems
finished almost all 3 continents without problems
i got an avast! free edition running and i got no problems with it
and i avoid any suspicious pm's

What is known to be possible is not all that is possible.

1. Be super paranoid about all your downloads.

2. Get Windows Defender from MicroSoft. There is a function under Tools tab that will show all running background processes. In addition, WD will scan daily.

Open the WD Software Explorer. Look at all the processes. If it does not say "permitted," look it up in a search engine. Find out what it is. A process may not say permitted and yet may still be OK. It is tedious, but you have to learn about each one.

If you do this after any download, you will learn to recognize any new item that shows up.

3. It is true with the Internet as with everything else. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Small and simple tip to avoid getting your password recorded by a keylogger:

Write down your password in a word file or something like that, open gw, and paste the password in the password box Most keyloggers record keystrokes once a program is started, so by copy pasting it, they cant .

How exactly DOES this happen if your email/user name is different to the one you use for confirmation emails? Nobody has answered this yet.

If we look past how a person got hacked in the first place and to the fact that it seems you don't actually need to use the confirmation email to change your password, then I think it needs looked at by ANet. What's the point in having a confirmation email if it's not used, or a 'hacker' can fool Play NC into thinking it was confirmed or whatever.

I myself got h4x0red and more than likely it was something dodgy i had downloaded. They stole everything and deleted all my chars.
I lost 11 level 20 chars. Some had finished all 3 games. Most had 1 set of elite armour. Some had 3-4. *sobs*

What i'd like to see is some kind of lock you can put on characters and maybe certain items to stop them being deleted/sold. it could be something as simple as a password.

If they can "hack" your account and change your game account password, what in the 9 hells makes you think a character password is going to slow them down at all?

Paper Tiger.

To add to what the others have said......be careful of exe's (you can scan them before opening) and websites that friends send you. They might not know it has a virus and send it innocently. Years ago, I got one from a friend that the virus itself sent. So be suspicious of everything.

I was never rich. The most I ever held at one time was maybe 500k. And I never randomly opened trade to "show off" my measly 500k. Hell, I've never owned one Arm.
However, I am beginning to suspect, wearily as it may be, that it might have just been a gold farmer. I mean, when I got my account back and checked it, I had a whopping 500+ points on my Wisdom title... in a week? It took me like 6 months to get to tier 3 and in less than a week I'm 10 away from tier 4? And my stash was just packed with unids PROBABLY waiting to be sold in a 5-for-7k type of thing. And given the fact the user was Taiwanese of origin, this is just the random conclusion I've jumped to.
This is exactly why I brought up the point, "Furthermore, why is ANet's system so fault-ridden and the security flimsy?" I never made any confirmation of said change, yet it went through anyways? BAH, I say!
I don't have any GW friends who send my GW anything, unless again, you gentlemen mean unrelated to GW

The current phishing scam hit me too.As far as I can see it(and correct me if I'm wrong) couldn't have been a keylogger,as I've been using the -password command line. The one I got took my FoW set,a few weapons and the 30k I had in storage.They left a few other sets of armor with Sup. Vigors on them. Wheres the logic there?

You got your account back?

Oh, on logic, there is none. The person was either being cautious (seen ANet's policy on random big trades?) or lazy.

Mine salvaged Sup Vigors from my 15k Druids and Ancient monk armor, successfully destroying the armor in question. What I contemplated was, why? Sup Vigor is only 15k and I had 43 ecto on my sin and 300k in my storage, unless of course they were a gold farmer as I guessed and needed a quick buck.

Hadnt lost it in the first place,until a couple of hours after discovering that.AFAIK the email and password for my account have changed.So right now,I'm working on getting it sorted via PlayNC and my master account.If only I could've remebered the details for that in the first place :'(

Well, good luck on getting your account back. The master accounts for PlayNC are weird, and also seem to be a slight risk when it comes to accounts and owning them. If you need anything just let me know, my storage mules are getting fairly full

Thanks for the generosity. I should be able to get back on my feet quite well though. Dumb phisher left my 600'ing staff and armor,so I should be able to CoF plenty. If I get another account though,that'll be a different matter entirely.

Thanks

Something that has always made me slightly suspicious is how many of the guilds who advertise here on guru have links to there forums where if you want to apply, you must make an account, complete with a confirmation e-mail address and a password. Now, I know most, if not all, of these are probably innocent, and that even if they weren't, using a different email than you use for gw and obviously a different password as well would make their efforts meaningless. However, there are plenty of people I'm sure who use the same email address, and probably use the same password as well, hence I've always felt a fair bit of suspicion to said forum links. I am somewhat suspicious by nature though, so judge it as you will.

Good luck with getting your account back and such. I don't see how in the world it could just simply happen to someone when their computer is supposedly safe, but stranger things have happened.

Oh and to note on what bhavv said, that's not as safe as one might think, there are plenty of programs just as common as keyloggers that will snapshot your screen, and monitor how your mouse moves/clicks, as well as recording keystrokes.

It saddens me that things like this happen. Even if it is just a video game, stealing is still stealing.

spyware? o.O or a trojan ,. did u visit any supsicious sites

I hate to use this one reference, but it is probably something ANet should implement.

If anyone has played RuneScape in the past year, you would know that to get into your bank, you must click, with your mouse, in a 4 number code.
ANet should implement this when logging in.
All you have to do is type email in, type password in, punch 4 numbers by CLICKING a 4 number code. That way, even if your password is stolen, they still can't get into your account.

Simple answer. Would work well.

Just thought I'd give an update, I got my account sorted. And the above post would be spiffy.

They never changed my game password at all. And as far as i am aware they get your password by reading it when you put it in. So if you only put the character locking password in once then chances are they wont be able to find out what it is. Unless you were already compromised when you made the char.