Greetings all~
Over the past month we've all seen a noticable increase in the amount of "fake" NCsoft emails being received by people in the community, some of which has increased dramatically since the recent wave of Aion website attacks (read more
here).
As many of you know, these "fake" NCsoft emails are part of a wider issue called "Phishing" where companies are working hard to trick players into giving up their account details accidentally. You can read more about
phishing and how to protect your account in the post created by our Knite, as well as the NCsoft
Play Smart page and the recent
posting by the Game Surveillance Unit.
The purpose of this thread is to consolidate and document all the known phishing emails that we have seen or heard about on this forum. Each of the emails have been proven to be fake for one reason or another, most of which are obvious but some of which are not. With some luck, this post will help to spread awareness even further.
Remember, it is up to you to educate yourself about phishing emails. To get you started with the basics, here are some tips about the things that phishing companies often do:
- Yes, they can spoof an email address to make it look like it has come from NCsoft's official email address. Never assume an email is legitimate just because it says it is from email@address.hidden! (thanks to Broom, aka Linna, for the link!)
- Yes, they can disguise a link in an email so that it appears to be legitimate. Just because a link says it is https://secure.ncsoft.com in the email doesn't mean that is where you will end up when you click it!
- Yes, they appear to declare war on the english language in every email they send. Anyone involved in phishing doesn't appear to be able to write grammatical English to save their lives, so if you notice the odd word or punctuation missing then you should immediately be suspicious!
List of Fake NCsoft Emails:
Below is a full list of all the fake, phishing related emails we have heard about from the Aion Source community over the past month. We have tried to make the list as complete as possible, however if you have seen something different in your inbox lately then please drop me, or one of the other mods, a PM to let us know about it.
Remember: These emails are
ALL FAKE.
None of them are genuine.
None of them came from NCsoft.
Safety: As a precaution, we have removed all the unsafe material (phishing website links) from these emails.
1. Fake password reset *MOST RECENT*
Quote:
Subject: Password Reset Success
From: "NCSoft Support" (email@address.hidden)
Date: 28 January 2010
Someone 65.255.34.173 Aion has been reset to your game account password. If you not make the change, please contact support https://secure.ncsoft.com/login.
|
2. Fake account investigation
Quote:
Subject: NCsoft Account Under Investigation
From: NCsoft Support (email@address.hidden)
Date: 22 January 2010
Greetings,
An investigation of your Aion account has found strong evidence that the account in question is being sold or traded. As you may not be aware of, this conflicts with EULA under section 4 Paragraph B which can be found here: Aion -> Legal -> End User License Agreement and Section 8 of the Terms of Use found here: Aion -> Legal -> Terms of Use
The investigation will be continued by NCsoft administration to determine the action to be taken against your account. If your account is found violating the EULA and Terms of Use, your account can, and will be suspended/closed/or terminated. In order to keep this from occurring, you should immediately verify that you are the original owner of the account. To verify your identity please visit the following webpage: NCsoft Master Account
Only Account Administration will be able to assist with account retrieval issues. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter, and your continued interest in Aion.
Sincerely,
Aion Account Administration
NCsoft entertainment
|
3. Fake account suspension
Quote:
Subject: Game Surveillance Unit
From: NCsoftSupport [email@address.hidden]
Date: 20 January 2010
GM lunarnoodle
Game Surveillance Unit
Account XXXXXXXXX
Hello,
The above listed account was recently suspended due to a violation of Aion (Europe)'s User Agreement and or Rules of Conduct (ROC). The reason for the account suspension is Use/Advertise Cheater Program. Please go to NCsoft Support for further information. If the link above does not work please go to www.ncsoft.com , We suspect that unauthorized use of your account, please answer the following questions confirm your identity
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- What first and last name did you use when you created the account?
-- What physical address did you use when you created the account?
-- What date of birth did you use when you created the account?
-- What are the 20-digit serial codes for all games you added to the account?
-- What is your password?
-- What is the Unique Account ID for the game account you are referring to? (This was sent to you via e-mail on the date your game account was activated with a subject header of "Game Account Activated.")
Support requests are responded to in the order that they are received. Sending multiple requests will not result in a faster response time, but it will slow down support for everyone who is waiting since we’ll have to go through multiple requests for a single issue. Please submit just one ticket per issue, so that we can provide the fastest service possible for everyone.
Thanks,
NCsoft Support
|
4. Fake account suspension 2
Quote:
Subject: Account Verification
From: NCsoft Support (email@address.hidden)
Date: 20 January 2010
Account xxxxx,
The above listed account was recently suspended due to a violation of Aion's User Agreement and or Rules of Conduct (ROC). The reason for the account suspension is Use/Advertise Cheater Program. Please go to NCsoft Support for further information.
If the link above does not work please go to www.NCsoft.com , click on Help, then click on "Ask a Question."
|
5. Fake hacker warning
Quote:
Subject: Password Reset Success
From: "NCSoft Support" (email@address.hidden)
Date: 10 January 2010
Someone at 173.45.79.26 log in to your Aion account of the game, if you do not landed, Please immediately NCsoft Master Account support.
|
6. Fake account check
Quote:
Subject: Aion Account Check
From: NCsoft Support <email@address.hidden>
Date: 10 January 2010
Hello xxxxxx,
When you receive this message at the same time means that you have a routine account of our recent examination, was checking your account we have the evidence to prove that involved in the controversial game currency transaction so we had to take the necessary measures.
Please visit our web site https://secure.ncsoft.com/ as soon as possible to activate your account or we will suspend your account.
The NCsoft Team
|
7. Fake security warning
Quote:
Subject: NCsoft Account Security Risks Notice
From: NCsoft Support (email@address.hidden)
Date: 9 January 2010
When you receive this message when your NCsoft Account means that there are serious security risks. We have evidence to prove your account has been in different countries and regions, several attempts to login.
So we have to remind you to enter our web site as soon as possible https://secure.ncsoft.com/login to account verification, otherwise, we will be lock your account.
In order to protect your interests.
The NCsoft Team
|
8. WoW account inspection from NCsoft...lol?
Quote:
Subject: World of Warcraft Account The Inspection Result Notification
From: NCsoft Support (email@address.hidden)
Date: 22 January 2010
We are in the quarter a routine inspection found that your account has serious security risk so we had to send this message to inform you and ask you to note that account security and to ensure that you are not subject to the loss, we will lock your account, if you do not want us to take such action as soon as possible to verify your account login World of Warcraft Community Site.
The World Of Warcraft Team.
|
I think we all had a good laugh when we saw this last one lol.
A genuine NCsoft email:
Now, I thought about whether I should post a copy of a real email from NCsoft and I decided not to. Why? Well, I suppose I don't want to go ahead and make it easy for the phishing companies to start getting their emails correct. Sure, phishing folks will figure out the exact wording for themselves if they really want to, but I'll be damned if I'm going to make it simple for them!
When it comes to real emails from NCsoft support, here are some tips:
- NCsoft will NEVER ask you to follow a website link to login and verify your account details!
- When you reset your game account passwords via your NCsoft Master Account, you will receive an email that ONLY recommends to contact email@address.hidden via email if you didn't make the change (i.e. no web link will be given, they will only ask you to contact them via this email address).
- NCsoft may have a few flaws but, as a company, their support staff DO tend to be very literate so you won't see genuine emails from NCsoft riddled with ridiculous spelling and grammar errors.
The End~
posted 2010-01-28 16:38:00 GMT
