Sunday, 11 November 2007

How to Keep your Account Safe

Runescape: Shielding Your Account From Real World Thieves.

We love Runescape. It’s a great game and there’s always so much to do. Previously, and in the future, we’ll write about so many tips and tricks that you’ll be a world-wide renowned player if you follow them all. However, there are people out there who are too lazy to do the work for themselves. Some of you reading this article may have had your Runescape account stolen by hackers and thieves. If you’re ever asked to participate in helping to steal Runescape passwords, please report it to Jagex immediately. There’s no fun in getting accounts illegally, and it’s morally wrong. Also, you could be liable for legal action if you do so.

We have to protect our accounts from these hacking teams, so our team went undercover into one of these password-stealing scams. We found out the top ways that they work, and we’re going to list some ways you can protect yourself. Some of these things are obvious, others, not so much…

1.) Don’t ever tell someone your password. Nobody. Jagex will never ask for your password. Remember, they have your password already on their server, so why would they need to ask? The only person who would ask is someone stealing accounts.
2.) Your account will never be locked in 24 hours if you don’t provide your password. Trust us. If RuneScape wants to ban you, they won’t wait 24 hours.
3.) Only login to Runescape on the official RuneScape site. The official site is www.runescape.com Never follow a link to the site, because links can easily be faked by anyone. Check the address bar every time you play. Also, you should manually type in the URL in the address bar when you do play.
4.) Get an anti-virus software, even a free one. Not only will this protect your account, it’ll protect your computer. We recommend AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition.
5.) Get an anti-spyware program, even if it is free. We recommend Lavasoft Ad-Aware Free Edition. The reason for this is that hackers can use spyware to see what you type as your password on your computer.
6.) Get keylogger protection. Lavasoft does this, but if you can get a special program for preventing keyloggers, your PC will be a lot safer.

7.) Don’t go for scams that say that they will give you tons of free items, or free gold. Don’t go for the email scams either. Let’s review the e-mail scam in detail. Here’s what an uninformed Runescape player might do.

You visit a website that says that they can get you tons of free gold and items at no risk at all. Of course, you check the site out.

The site says that JagEx or Runescape has a vulnerability in their email system. By emailing a certain email address that, of course, belongs to JagEx, you’ll get some gold, or items, or someone else’s account password.

All you have to do to get that free stuff is to send an email to that email address, or fill out a form on a website with some information. This email or form ALWAYS contains your username and password, and maybe it contains how much gold you want, or which items you want, or the person’s account name whose password you want. There are slight variations on this scam.
After you email the information, you’ll get the stuff in your account that you requested.
Here’s what’s really happening. When you fill out the form or send the email, you’re actually sending it to a scammer. The scammer will then collect the data as fast as possible, and log in to your account! Then, they’ll proceed to empty it completely of anything valuable. If you have a high level character, they might change the email and password that the account is registered to, and start to play under your account. Boom. You have no proof that that was your account to begin with, and all your hard work is gone.

Question: But the email that I’m sending to looks really official. Its something like jagex@yahoo.com. Of course this isn’t a scam.

Answer: DEAD WRONG! First of all, JagEx employees’ emails always are like abcde@runescape.com or abcde@jagex.com. (By the way, if you receive an email from someone pretending to be a part of RuneScape staff, ignore it and forward it to abuse@jagex.com. These types of emails are fake, because the “sender” line has been compromised, something that’s easy to do. ) The JagEx mail server is only on these domains, so there’s no way that these’ll work. In fact, the scammers register official looking email addresses to fool you. Don’t fall for it.

Remember to stay safe while playing the game. Don’t waste all your hard work by falling for one of these silly tricks. Good Luck!

No comments: