Short Version: Check the address of every webpage you visit.


Long Version
It has been brought to my attention that a new wave of scammers/phishers have come. So far, they have been saying things like "Let's talk over here!" followed by a link to what LOOKS like the Aeria forum. Here is an example:


If you pay attention (and if your browser supports it and I believe all the popular ones do), you will see the actual URL that this scammer is directing you to:


Clicking the link takes you to a fake Aeria Games website login page. It is an exact replica except for one thing. If you enter a username and password, then that information is sent to the scammer. There are a few ways to see that this is a scam site. First off, look at the URL at the top (boxed in blue). Another fairly easy way to tell is that the form will accept ANYTHING you put and then it will show you as logged in because it redirects over to the real Aeria website (assuming you were already logged into the real Aeria website).


For those of you who have clicked this link, you are probably okay unless you entered your actual Aeria username and password into the form below. If you have done this, then hurry up and change your password.


EDIT: It is NOT recommended that you visit the website even to mess with the scammer. If you do so, please understand that you could be keylogged, given some other virus, etc. Nothing malicious seemed to have been loaded when checking out the website, but that does not mean that it will not load some sort of keylogger or other virus.
I checked the website out on a test environment that, if somehow infected, would not have access to anything useful and could be easily wiped.

Nice, ubuntu screenshot.

thanks for the heads up o.ob

Very great announcement, everybody should read this.
The Account name made me lol

Yet another phishing scam. Thanks for letting us know.

Thank you JonGhost!
+Karma - oops can't give you more for a few months T___T

hahhahaha

username: FUScammer

Scammers....oh scammers....
Don't they have anything better to do? o.o;;;

Thanks for letting us know. ^^

im a game developer in colleger so take my word for itXD.

If u got this showin up on ur computer" security breach or, your computer is infected and about everything u click wont let u launch anything because it is so called"infected" and a stupid buy it now anti virus deal keeps showin up? then its not a virus, your computer HAS been hacked!!!
The easiest way i P.O'd thiese freaks is i simply do the following:
1:Usually when u click the power button real fast it goes to sleep (usually for lap tops), but if not put it to sleep if u have a hard desktop type.
2:As soon as you turn your computer back on ( if yours does this) then your computer will be startin up all your startup files, before this jerkoff gets onto your computer....CNTL+ALT+DLT and bring up the task mngr asap
3: keep the task up and wait for the security bs to start up again, scroll through the tab "processes" and look for a random set of letters, (example:cdfddfgr.con) or somethin stupid like that.
4:When some1 tried hackinmy computer, i screwed with his by puttin his runnin on win 95 and 256 colors, but for the quick way right click the random letters and go to properties, there u can go theu the admin rights, denying them all access to your computer, therefore he wont be able to get back on ur comp ever again
5: after u have finally denied this jerk of all acces to your precious computer, simply "end process" and smile ur butt off as he goes away forever
6:stand up and pat yourself on the back, you outsmarted even a hackerXD!

btw thnx about the scammers, its good to know ppl like us are helpin others outXD
Kenji_Himora
p.s-WATAH!

While I'm not surprised, this kind of scamming has happened in other games. While I was playing FFXI, a lot of people, including me, would get a 1-page pm posing as a GM or accusing the person of illegal activities (buying gold, selling to rmt, etc) and redirect them to a fake login page. This is horrifyingly similar.

There was quite a big ruckus when the rmt started to phish accounts until the game developer brought up a 1-page warning informing everyone about it. People who weren't aware of what was going on at first either put in a GM call or lost about 7+years of work in less than 12 hours. If the people who lost their account were lucky enough to get it back, either they found their character still intact or found all of their characters stripped completely bare of armor, items and gil, and left with multiple server transfer fees. The unluckiest of the bunch were stripped and had their characters deleted.

Think about it: multiple 75 jobs with a ton of merits, nice armors either from Salvage, Dynamis or upgrades from Tememos/Apollyon, leveled out trade skills, saved up gil, and maybe fully upgraded relic/mythic weapons that took 7+ years of your life to obtain due to the game mechanics and developer challenges and limitations, all of those completed missions and quests....all gone in an instant.

What JonGhost probably failed to mention is that sometimes these websites automatically download a virus or nasty trojan onto your computer should you click on the link, so make sure you either scan your computer on a regular basis, or go to a library (the ones near my home completely clean off their systems every day since they're public). If you bring up the task manager and take a look at your processes, normally on startup, and see a program that looks odd, you can google it. If it comes up with no matches, most likely it's a trojan or another malicious program that needs to be removed from your system.

Your other best defense is to keep all of your systems up-to-date, like anti-virus/anti-malware, and also be careful of what sites you visit. The reason for the big wall'o'text is because I've been hacked before, and believe me, it's not fun cleaning off your computer, losing everything you've saved, and having to go through all of your private information to make sure nothing's been changed. For someone who regularly games on their PC, it's pure agony having to wait for everything to be cleaned and reinstalled.

Thank you JonGhost, for pointing out this new wave of scammers and possible hackers. I sincerely appreciate the heads up.