So I was robbed today...

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King_Krampus
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So I was robbed today...

Post by King_Krampus » Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:29 am

Someone from Russia hacked into my account, and stole ALL of my high-value TF2 items. My Christmas Stickybomb Launcher and Sniper Rifle? Gone. My Unusual Steaming Mask of the Shaman? Gone. My almost Hale's Minigun? Gone. ALL of the taunts? All gone. The account is locked, and I've already contacted Steam Support about it. I'm holding out hope that since this wasn't a trade done with my knowledge or consent, they'll get me my items back, but so far, Steam policy seems to be against that.

If I'm not online for the next long while, that's why. Because I just lost everything of value that I'd collected over the past 4 years or so to some assclown from Russia.
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Ikri
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by Ikri » Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:55 am

:(
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Cheddars
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by Cheddars » Fri Aug 22, 2014 12:42 pm

did you have Steam Guard enabled?
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Maha
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by Maha » Fri Aug 22, 2014 12:59 pm

Generally if it's an account hijacking I think you'll get your stuff back. Didn't we have another thread from someone on here not to long ago with this situation?
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Roughjericho
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by Roughjericho » Fri Aug 22, 2014 1:24 pm

King Fluffy had this problem not too long ago.

http://forums.joe.to/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=72847
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by scobywhru » Fri Aug 22, 2014 2:52 pm

Don't let people view your inventory, keep it private. Choose a Long Password, I use one around 40 characters in a sentence without spaces. Check your PC for any malware/rootkits these are often hard to find. Keep websites from running scripts unless you completely trust these website, Script Blocker for Chrome NoScript for Firefox. Change all your passwords for Email and Steam once you are sure your computer is clean, make sure all the accounts have different long passwords, either use a password manager or write them down somewhere.
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Django
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by Django » Fri Aug 22, 2014 3:38 pm

Reading the title of the thread I thought you got mugged in real life or something.
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KatanaRama
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by KatanaRama » Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:25 pm

Django wrote:Reading the title of the thread I thought you got mugged in real life or something.
Same. Anyways, hope you get your stuff back, and that everything works out in the end. Cheers.
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rottencheeseCA
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by rottencheeseCA » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:47 pm

And nothing of value was lost. Next time try not to give away your info. Similar thing happened to me about 4 years ago, and I didn't loose anything, buy maybe that is because I don't buy expensive cosmetics. Anyway it was solved within a few days, so keep your chin up. And please don't start singing blues on the server, my poor ears couldn't take it
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by ChitterChatter » Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:20 pm

Oh thank goodness, for a minute I thought you were talking about your house.
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King_Krampus
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by King_Krampus » Sat Aug 23, 2014 12:06 am

Cheddars wrote:did you have Steam Guard enabled?
I think so? I can't quite remember at the moment. However, considering this was a legitimate hacking and not a trading scam, I'm hoping that it doesn't fall under Steam's usual "We won't give you your items back for being scammed" rules.
scobywhru wrote:Don't let people view your inventory, keep it private. Choose a Long Password, I use one around 40 characters in a sentence without spaces. Check your PC for any malware/rootkits these are often hard to find. Keep websites from running scripts unless you completely trust these website, Script Blocker for Chrome NoScript for Firefox. Change all your passwords for Email and Steam once you are sure your computer is clean, make sure all the accounts have different long passwords, either use a password manager or write them down somewhere.
Oh definitely. From now on my inventory is private. I've been getting people adding me on their friends list solely because they'd wanted some of those items. I went ahead and got AVG Internet Security, and it found a few things that I wasn't even aware of. I've also gone ahead and changed the passwords on my Gmail account and my bank account, as well as changed the security questions for the later. Since my Steam account had my debit card data on it, I also went ahead and cancelled the card and started the process of getting a new one. Once all the dust from this settles, I'm going to go back and change all my passwords again, this time using sentences like you suggested. I wasn't aware of Script Blocker, but I'll definitely go check it out, thank you.
rottencheeseCA wrote:And nothing of value was lost. Next time try not to give away your info. Similar thing happened to me about 4 years ago, and I didn't loose anything, buy maybe that is because I don't buy expensive cosmetics. Anyway it was solved within a few days, so keep your chin up. And please don't start singing blues on the server, my poor ears couldn't take it
...Cheese, I didn't give my info out. I'm nowhere near that foolish. Someone legitimately hacked into my account to steal my items. Which is really, really weird, considering that the password was something only I knew of to begin with. (And nothing of value? Over $400 worth of items were stolen, things that I'd collected from random crate unboxings and etc for the most part, not from buying them from vendors from places like TF2Outpost.) Also, screw you, my singing voice is FABULOUS!
KatanaRama wrote:
Django wrote:Reading the title of the thread I thought you got mugged in real life or something.
Same. Anyways, hope you get your stuff back, and that everything works out in the end. Cheers.
ChitterChatter wrote:Oh thank goodness, for a minute I thought you were talking about your house.
Yeah, I can see how there'd be that impression from the title. Granted, I was half-asleep and still reeling from the horror over being robbed of those things, which explains the title. Thankfully, I live in an apartment on the third floor of my building; it's unlikely anybody is going to try and take the time or trouble to climb all those flights of stairs to try and steal what relatively meager things I physically possess.

I do appreciate the concern everybody. As blunt as RottenCheese was, he is right, and it thankfully was only virtual items, not anything actually physical from my apartment. It was still just a huge shock, finding that someone had actually HACKED my account to steal my items. Especially since I don't know if they had tried to hack my Gmail account to get access to my Steam account or not.
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Ikri
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by Ikri » Sat Aug 23, 2014 12:32 am

It's still a pretty violating feeling, knowing someone both targeted and successfully broke into your personal private account that you've held so closely for years. It's good to see you're getting more proactive about having an up to date anti-virus and other online securities, though it's unfortunate this was the catalyst.
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dmitri ravinoff
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by dmitri ravinoff » Sat Aug 23, 2014 1:16 am

Well, there's two bad possibilities here. Either (a) you didn't have steamguard enabled, and thus are a certified idiot, or (b) said hacker got into your email, which is even worse.

how 2 thwart tf2 hackers:

1. steamguard

2. email with two-factor authentication.

3. never click links

4. enable steamguard

5. don't click links

6. antivirus

7. steamguard

7. antivirus

8. don't click links
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by scobywhru » Sat Aug 23, 2014 10:35 am

I don't trust AVG, it works OK ish but I don't consider it worth real money it let a lot get by when I have tried it. I would actually suggest buying Eset instead of any other since it is lighter or resources and as complete in protection as any other top tier antivirus. Bitdefender seems to be highly recommended as well as Kaspersky, I try to avoid Norton and McAfee due to the ubiquitous nature since they are targeted by malware.
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King_Krampus
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Re: So I was robbed today...

Post by King_Krampus » Sat Aug 23, 2014 2:08 pm

dmitri ravinoff wrote:Well, there's two bad possibilities here. Either (a) you didn't have steamguard enabled, and thus are a certified idiot, or (b) said hacker got into your email, which is even worse.

how 2 thwart tf2 hackers:

1. steamguard

2. email with two-factor authentication.

3. never click links
...
To be honest, I'd be really surprised if I hadn't had SteamGuard enabled, considering that nowadays, you can't even trade items without it being enabled.

Going over what could have led to all this, I came upon this chain of events:
1. I was messaged late Thursday by someone I had added to my friends list to trade with, saying that someone they knew wanted to trade with me. The third party couldn't add me for some reason, so the second party sent me a link to the profile page of the third party.
2. I click the link, and try to add the person, but it's not allowing me to unless I download SteamGuard. Since it's apparently from a Steam website, I go ahead and download it. I try to run it, but it never opens up.
3. At about a little after 5AM Friday, I receive this email from Steam:
We've received a request to access your Steam account from the Steam Client on
a new computer located at IP address: 89.222.240.151
Our records show this IP address is in VLADIMIR VLADIMIR RU
The following code is only for logging into the Steam Client.
Do not enter this code into a web browser. If this email was generated as a result
of you entering your account name and password into a web site, that site may be
malicious, and we recommend that you change your password immediately.
I'm half-asleep at this point. I can't remember whether I went and typed in the code or not. I then get a follow-up email about 20 minutes to 6AM:
Dear moffitartan,

This email message confirms that your Steam account contact email address has been successfully changed from the computer located at IP address: 89.222.240.151 Our records show this IP address is in VLADIMIR VLADIMIR RU
We are sending this notice to ensure the privacy and security of your Steam account. If you authorized this change, no further action is necessary.

If you did not authorize this change please follow this link to the Steam Support site to lock your account and submit a request for assistance::
I'm in full on panic mode now. I lock it immediately, and send them a report about it all.

Now, something that just now happened? I get an alert from AVG saying that a Trojan Horse is trying to activate. I'd already had it go through my computer several times and thought I'd gotten rid of them all. Turns out? The Trojan Horse is INSIDE the SteamGuard app that I downloaded to try and friend the guy supposedly trying to trade with me. AVG immediately deletes it.

The thing is, I've now gone and enabled the 2-step verification for GMail and my Google accounts. I was able to look into the activity logs Google has, showing from where my Gmail and other Google accounts had been logged into. The strange thing is though, besides my phone and my computer, there were NO OTHER attempts to log into my accounts from anywhere else.

What I gather from this is that this Trojan Horse allowed the Russian hacker to hack into my Steam account, but not thankfully my other accounts. They tried to hack me again not 15-20 minutes ago, but AVG stopped them from doing so. There's now no trace of any Trojans or other malicious software on my computer.

This doesn't change the fact that I'm probably going to change what passwords that don't have a character limit to them to basically multi-long sentences though. I'm just glad that I was able to lock the account and disable the bank card connected to the account before they could try and either steal more stuff or use my account to buy themselves games.

Ikri wrote:It's still a pretty violating feeling, knowing someone both targeted and successfully broke into your personal private account that you've held so closely for years. It's good to see you're getting more proactive about having an up to date anti-virus and other online securities, though it's unfortunate this was the catalyst.
It is. By my own nature, I'm a very trusting person, as I generally expect people to have the basic human decency to treat others the way they want to be treated. I'm not going to stop feeling that way, mind you, but it's rather saddening to be reminded that people aren't always like that.
scobywhru wrote:I don't trust AVG, it works OK ish but I don't consider it worth real money it let a lot get by when I have tried it. I would actually suggest buying Eset instead of any other since it is lighter or resources and as complete in protection as any other top tier antivirus. Bitdefender seems to be highly recommended as well as Kaspersky, I try to avoid Norton and McAfee due to the ubiquitous nature since they are targeted by malware.
I'm taking a look at EsEt right now, but unfortunately, I don't have the $60 necessary to buy a year-long protection subscription. *sigh* Reason #50 to try and find either a second job or a better primary job: So that I can actually afford decent cyber security. (And no worries, I'm not giving a dime to Norton or McAfee. While Norton did fine by me for several years, the fact that they are one of the two biggest names in cyber security does make them too big of a target for hackers to create backdoors for them.)
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