1

Regarding Malicious Software

Official statement from Square Enix:

We have received reports that a popular third-party FINAL FANTASY XI website had been infecting customers with malicious software. Our Legal team immediately contacted the hosting site of the offending third-party website and had the site taken down until the issue could be addressed. While the website main page has had the offending code removed, we strongly recommend that our community be careful when they visit any website concerning FINAL FANTASY XI that is not endorsed by Square Enix. While we have no control over these third-party websites, we urge that the community contact us immediately if any similar incidents arise in the future.

We also suggest that our customers read up on precautionary measures they can take to ensure the safety of their information online.

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news10343.shtml

Comments

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banned and slaped
# Jul 03 2009 at 3:03 PM Rating: Decent
my frind just posted that i opoligize for the language
banned and slaped
# Jul 03 2009 at 3:00 PM Rating: Decent
seriosly i got really simple thing to say f u you playonline you miserable fks they took my account away and told me its becouse of irregular activity which is big bs **** becouse i always played on fkn xbox so how the fk did i ever do anytin wrong u stupid mofos and another thing this was my first everr playin online games so how the fk would i know how to fk with u guys anyway? like i said f u squar enix and f u once again for havein playgeyline on your side
hrmm
# Dec 17 2007 at 8:14 AM Rating: Decent
**
634 posts
To be fair, it's not really an SE vulnerability. It's not like we've known which websites were ******** us over back on November 20th. As far as I know, we found out last week, and now, SE has brought down their websites.

I think that's pretty quick.

I check my computers often, and I try not to do any password related things, like changing them, on anything other than my PS3, which as far as I know, can't be keylogged.

peace,
CR
Stolen Accounts
# Dec 15 2007 at 11:37 PM Rating: Default
Hi

i apologize for posting this a second time but I felt it should be as close to the front page as possible.

First off SE DID NOT REACT IN RECORD TIME!!! this has been going on since Nov.20 you remeber when WOTG was released. Since the number of people at last count was 400 and rising and is still going strong SE has had no choice but to react.

SE reaction if you want to call it that is to post a warning from May 2007 in a word Pathetic. Here is my story which I will follow up with links to give you an idea of how bad this really is:


I normally don't post here but do use the fourms for information about the game but recently became a victim as some of you...I would have posted earlier but I have been trying to calm down.

My only course of action now is to now sent a letter to:

Square Enix North America
ATTN: North American Account Manager , William Bisby
999 North Sepulveda BLVD. 3rd Floor
EL Segundo , CA
90245

As you can not speak to him directly nor have his email address!! the local authorties have logged a report but very little will be done...here is the letter I sent:

Good Afternoon Mr.Bisby

I have been a customer of SE since december 2004, starting with the Xbox 360 beta for FFXI. I have since migrated to using the PC version of the game and most recently purchased the WoTG expansion pack.

On the evening of December 6, 2007, at approximately 9:10 pm EST, while waiting for a teleport in WG, I was kicked off of POL with the message that "you have been disconnected as you have been logged on from another terminal". Naturally this was impossible as my wife and I were sitting right there. I tried to log back in multiple times each time being told that my password was incorrect.

I quickly realized my account had been somehow compromised and proceeded to call the NA Support Center, whose hours at from 9am -6pm PT as I'm sure you are aware. I then tried to launch webchat from your website whose hours are also from 9am - 6pm PT. I proceeded to try webchat for the UK which was actually 3:00am in the morning there, hence they were also closed. At this point I had my wife place a GM call ingame as she was still logged into the game and spoke to a GM by the name of Mjorne, who proceeded to inform us that the only thing I could do was log a call with POL support, which of course was not open. I begged and pleaded that he do anything, anything at all, even to the point of having my character jailed until this could be resolved. I was told he did not have this empowerment and could not "jail" a character simply upon request.

I finally got through to a UK webchat support at 10:30am EST and spoke with SEL Agent Gurinder, who though although could not do very much, was at least able to kick my character off the game and change my password (once, of course, he had verified all my ID). Then I had to wait until 12:00 noon EST to contact the NA Support Centre in order to retrieve my new password and to find out what course of action I could take. Upon logging in I had two characters created under that POL ID. I have lost the following:

Metalmyth = 635,000 gil +/-

Items:

Blau Dolch = 1,500,000
Scorpion Harness +1 = 890,000
Amenet Mantle +1 = 200,000
Precise Belt = 140,000
Thief's Knife = 100,000
Wood M Ledelsens = 50,000
Snow Ring x 2 = @ 400,000 = 800,000
Ziska's Crossbow = 350,000
Pluto Staff = 440,000
Jupiter Staff = 500,000
Auster's Staff = 550,000
Dragon Harness = 390,000
Neptune Staff = 430,000
Aquilo's Staff = 200,000
Prism Cape = 500,000
Vulcan's Staff = 450,000
Terra's Staff = 450,000
Chivalrous Chain = 150,000
Warrior Gloves +1 = 94,000
Dusk Trousers = 700,000
Lu Shang Rod = 1,500,000
Rabbit Charm = 95,000
Garrulous Rings = 45,000
Spinel Ring = 30,000
Jet Seraweels = 235,000
Elusive Earring = 180,000


Zandor = 235,000 gil +/-
Demon's Cloak = 800,000
Velocity Bow +1 = 1,000,000


13,639,000 total value


Naturally, this is very disheartening. I called back to POL numerous times and finally had the issue logged under Issue #780562, where I received every type of response from "You must have given out your POL ID and PW" to "You downloaded a malicious piece of software" to "You are using illegal 3rd party tools" to "It was your fault, Mr. Customer" to which all was incorrect and promptly proceeded to ask to speak with a Supervisor to which I was told "You can't speak to a supervisor" to "We will make a request for you to speak to a Supervisor" to " Supervisors can't help you" to "Your only course of action is to speak to a GM." all of the above transpired over your 8 hour day on Friday December 7, 2007 with multiple agents

I then made calls to the GM, who informed me that only a Lead GM could even listen and consider what could be done. I was told that it would be within 72 hours that I would be contacted. Naturally I asked what would happen if I was not online when he contacted me to which I was told that they would leave me a message ... so would that mean I would have to wait another 72 hours? to which I was told "possibly". As you can imagine from all the above I did my own investigation and found that the following player "Ifmaizhuangbei" had sold all of the following items on the morning of December 7, 2007 before I was able to regain control of my character.

Pluto Staff 440,000
Jupiter Staff 500,000
Auster's Staff 550,000
Dragon Harness 390,000
Neptune Staff 430,000
Aquilo's Staff 200,000
Blau Dolch 1,500,000
Prism Cape 500,000
Vulcan's Staff 450,000
Terra's Staff 400,000
Lu shang 1,500,000
Demon's cloak 780,000
Scorpion Harness +1 800,000
Elusive Earring 180,000



This can be easily viewed at the following URL:

http://www.ffxiah.com/player.php?id=1097436

I realize that this is not an official way to investigate but common logic would dictate that this is the 'person' that all my items were traded to in order to sell. The other items that are listed above are more than likely just not sold as of yet.

I tried to report my findings to a GM to which I was told "There is no way to prove that those are your items and again a request has been submitted to a Senior GM to contact you within 72 hours."

Currently under my credit card I have two characters that I use myself and my wife, also under my credit card, has 4 characters. I understand I am not SE's only customer but with close to 3 years without missing payment and following all ToS, I would expect a little bit better support than Supervisor's that do not return calls within an 8 hour day or being told that they understand I have a job during normal working hours, but I should spend my 72 hour weekend sitting in front of my PC waiting for a possible GM call so that they can consider whether or not they should investigate.

To give you a perspective I was contacted on the third day by a Senior GM who promptly told me that I could make a call to the local authorities and that they "SE" would assist with the investigation but unless the items were lost or droppped there was nothing that could or would be done.I asked to at the very least have an invesrtigation started...NO report the matter to local authorities and was there anything else he could help me with...I was floored I would be treated like this...I objected and he just bid me Good Adventures and left??? I was eventually told by other GM's I could no longer make further calls on this matter as it was decided and if I continued I would be banned for 72 hours!!

I have been further told by both sides that neither the POL Support Team nor the GMs have any way to communicate with each other, even though they work under the same company for the same product and that my only alternative, if I felt the support was not as expected, was to send YOU a letter through the US Postal Service as you have no email address nor do you have a direct line.

The above lists for both characters represents 2.5 years of my leisure "life" and I would expect that I could be assisted and assured that something would be done to correct this violation.

Regards

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10;mid=119720635127342389

http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=27042&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=480

http://www.qcdn.org/ffxi/showthread.php?t=52630

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:1ONE5x_9fD4J:www.killingifrit.com/forums.php%3Fm%3Dposts%26q%3D165259+ffxi+stolen+accounts&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=ca
Stolen Accounts
# Dec 15 2007 at 11:36 PM Rating: Default
Hi

i apologize for posting this a second time but I felt it should be as close to the front page as possible.

First off SE DID NOT REACT IN RECORD TIME!!! this has been going on since Nov.20 you remeber when WOTG was released. Since the number of people at last count was 400 and rising and is still going strong SE has had no choice but to react.

SE reaction if you want to call it that is to post a warning from May 2007 in a word Pathetic. Here is my story which I will follow up with links to give you an idea of how bad this really is:


I normally don't post here but do use the fourms for information about the game but recently became a victim as some of you...I would have posted earlier but I have been trying to calm down.

My only course of action now is to now sent a letter to:

Square Enix North America
ATTN: North American Account Manager , William Bisby
999 North Sepulveda BLVD. 3rd Floor
EL Segundo , CA
90245

As you can not speak to him directly nor have his email address!! the local authorties have logged a report but very little will be done...here is the letter I sent:

Good Afternoon Mr.Bisby

I have been a customer of SE since december 2004, starting with the Xbox 360 beta for FFXI. I have since migrated to using the PC version of the game and most recently purchased the WoTG expansion pack.

On the evening of December 6, 2007, at approximately 9:10 pm EST, while waiting for a teleport in WG, I was kicked off of POL with the message that "you have been disconnected as you have been logged on from another terminal". Naturally this was impossible as my wife and I were sitting right there. I tried to log back in multiple times each time being told that my password was incorrect.

I quickly realized my account had been somehow compromised and proceeded to call the NA Support Center, whose hours at from 9am -6pm PT as I'm sure you are aware. I then tried to launch webchat from your website whose hours are also from 9am - 6pm PT. I proceeded to try webchat for the UK which was actually 3:00am in the morning there, hence they were also closed. At this point I had my wife place a GM call ingame as she was still logged into the game and spoke to a GM by the name of Mjorne, who proceeded to inform us that the only thing I could do was log a call with POL support, which of course was not open. I begged and pleaded that he do anything, anything at all, even to the point of having my character jailed until this could be resolved. I was told he did not have this empowerment and could not "jail" a character simply upon request.

I finally got through to a UK webchat support at 10:30am EST and spoke with SEL Agent Gurinder, who though although could not do very much, was at least able to kick my character off the game and change my password (once, of course, he had verified all my ID). Then I had to wait until 12:00 noon EST to contact the NA Support Centre in order to retrieve my new password and to find out what course of action I could take. Upon logging in I had two characters created under that POL ID. I have lost the following:

Metalmyth = 635,000 gil +/-

Items:

Blau Dolch = 1,500,000
Scorpion Harness +1 = 890,000
Amenet Mantle +1 = 200,000
Precise Belt = 140,000
Thief's Knife = 100,000
Wood M Ledelsens = 50,000
Snow Ring x 2 = @ 400,000 = 800,000
Ziska's Crossbow = 350,000
Pluto Staff = 440,000
Jupiter Staff = 500,000
Auster's Staff = 550,000
Dragon Harness = 390,000
Neptune Staff = 430,000
Aquilo's Staff = 200,000
Prism Cape = 500,000
Vulcan's Staff = 450,000
Terra's Staff = 450,000
Chivalrous Chain = 150,000
Warrior Gloves +1 = 94,000
Dusk Trousers = 700,000
Lu Shang Rod = 1,500,000
Rabbit Charm = 95,000
Garrulous Rings = 45,000
Spinel Ring = 30,000
Jet Seraweels = 235,000
Elusive Earring = 180,000


Zandor = 235,000 gil +/-
Demon's Cloak = 800,000
Velocity Bow +1 = 1,000,000


13,639,000 total value


Naturally, this is very disheartening. I called back to POL numerous times and finally had the issue logged under Issue #780562, where I received every type of response from "You must have given out your POL ID and PW" to "You downloaded a malicious piece of software" to "You are using illegal 3rd party tools" to "It was your fault, Mr. Customer" to which all was incorrect and promptly proceeded to ask to speak with a Supervisor to which I was told "You can't speak to a supervisor" to "We will make a request for you to speak to a Supervisor" to " Supervisors can't help you" to "Your only course of action is to speak to a GM." all of the above transpired over your 8 hour day on Friday December 7, 2007 with multiple agents

I then made calls to the GM, who informed me that only a Lead GM could even listen and consider what could be done. I was told that it would be within 72 hours that I would be contacted. Naturally I asked what would happen if I was not online when he contacted me to which I was told that they would leave me a message ... so would that mean I would have to wait another 72 hours? to which I was told "possibly". As you can imagine from all the above I did my own investigation and found that the following player "Ifmaizhuangbei" had sold all of the following items on the morning of December 7, 2007 before I was able to regain control of my character.

Pluto Staff 440,000
Jupiter Staff 500,000
Auster's Staff 550,000
Dragon Harness 390,000
Neptune Staff 430,000
Aquilo's Staff 200,000
Blau Dolch 1,500,000
Prism Cape 500,000
Vulcan's Staff 450,000
Terra's Staff 400,000
Lu shang 1,500,000
Demon's cloak 780,000
Scorpion Harness +1 800,000
Elusive Earring 180,000



This can be easily viewed at the following URL:

http://www.ffxiah.com/player.php?id=1097436

I realize that this is not an official way to investigate but common logic would dictate that this is the 'person' that all my items were traded to in order to sell. The other items that are listed above are more than likely just not sold as of yet.

I tried to report my findings to a GM to which I was told "There is no way to prove that those are your items and again a request has been submitted to a Senior GM to contact you within 72 hours."

Currently under my credit card I have two characters that I use myself and my wife, also under my credit card, has 4 characters. I understand I am not SE's only customer but with close to 3 years without missing payment and following all ToS, I would expect a little bit better support than Supervisor's that do not return calls within an 8 hour day or being told that they understand I have a job during normal working hours, but I should spend my 72 hour weekend sitting in front of my PC waiting for a possible GM call so that they can consider whether or not they should investigate.

To give you a perspective I was contacted on the third day by a Senior GM who promptly told me that I could make a call to the local authorities and that they "SE" would assist with the investigation but unless the items were lost or droppped there was nothing that could or would be done.I asked to at the very least have an invesrtigation started...NO report the matter to local authorities and was there anything else he could help me with...I was floored I would be treated like this...I objected and he just bid me Good Adventures and left??? I was eventually told by other GM's I could no longer make further calls on this matter as it was decided and if I continued I would be banned for 72 hours!!

I have been further told by both sides that neither the POL Support Team nor the GMs have any way to communicate with each other, even though they work under the same company for the same product and that my only alternative, if I felt the support was not as expected, was to send YOU a letter through the US Postal Service as you have no email address nor do you have a direct line.

The above lists for both characters represents 2.5 years of my leisure "life" and I would expect that I could be assisted and assured that something would be done to correct this violation.

Regards

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10;mid=119720635127342389

http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=27042&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=480

http://www.qcdn.org/ffxi/showthread.php?t=52630

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:1ONE5x_9fD4J:www.killingifrit.com/forums.php%3Fm%3Dposts%26q%3D165259+ffxi+stolen+accounts&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=ca
CC info
# Dec 15 2007 at 8:17 AM Rating: Good
33 posts
Problem with carl's suggestion is people like me... bad credit so no real credit card, using prepaid cards... those are only good for however much money you put on them at a time... so therefore, CC info gets changed every other month or so, but billing address is the same. I think it should be more of a "you want to change your account info, give us your mothers maiden name" or something like that. AND it should be added to the world transfer service, or make the CC info be input for you to transfer, I was hacked then moved to another server, and I had to pay the stupid 25 to go, and 25 to come back... very LAME.
Is that all we get?
# Dec 14 2007 at 9:42 PM Rating: Good
*
79 posts
I really hope there is more to this than them telling us something we already know. Well at least they reacted in record time, but seriously...tighten up security in regards to being able to change passwords and credit card info! Also, a little more customer service in regards to returning stolen accounts would be nice. Hackers are only taking advantage of FFXI because of the ridiculous security/account policy that SE has.
Delete
# Dec 14 2007 at 9:36 PM Rating: Decent
*
67 posts
Sorry, posting in wrong area, won't let me delete it...

Edited, Dec 15th 2007 12:39am by Beliehn
Stop being idiots SE and just lock accounts.
# Dec 14 2007 at 9:01 PM Rating: Good
***
1,008 posts

Quote:
we strongly recommend that our community be careful when they visit any website concerning FINAL FANTASY XI that is not endorsed by Square Enix.


There's only one website that is endorsed by SE and it's playonline.com. It's actually the website I am most afraid of because it asks us to put in our log in information to use the linkshell functionality.

Well this is for you SE if you are reading this:

******* tighten up your ****. Account selling and buying are not allowed by your company, so there's not reason why you should allow another person to take over the account once they have created it. It's not hard to make so that only me and all the CC and other information that is from me are allowed to use the account. Make it so any change of address or credit card that doesn't match the person who created it to not work.

Lock my account to the person who created it and stop acting like "it's wrong to do it, but I am not looking so do whatever you want". I don't care if some idiot can't sell his account as long as you make sure no one can take my account from me.
Stop being idiots SE and just lock accounts.
# Dec 14 2007 at 10:29 PM Rating: Good
**
335 posts
Quote:
There's only one website that is endorsed by SE and it's playonline.com. It's actually the website I am most afraid of because it asks us to put in our log in information to use the linkshell functionality.


I think they mean their premier sites like allak.. warcry. etc. http://www.playonline.com/polapps/s/fansite.site.Top?polg_loc=en
Stop being idiots SE and just lock accounts.
# Dec 14 2007 at 9:37 PM Rating: Good
*
67 posts
/sign

Well spoken Carl, I am in total agreeance with you.
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