Everyone Change Your Forum Password Now - Not a joke

[Alexandru Stanicu]

Ladies and Gents,

we the Team and you the Players have been betrayed by someone that we trusted.
While helping solve a problem, Zebranky got a hold of a PW (in a snippet of code) that he was not supposed to, and rather than report this, used that PW to access restricted areas and obtain other PW's and then to download the entire Forums DB, the Server DB, the DM PW, and copies of the server vault and all modules.

With this he has the ability to reverse the encryption on forums PWs and log in as someone else.
Everyone needs to change their forums PW ASAP, and notify the team if you see posts that are in your name that you did not make.

Worse still, with the forums DB he has the ability to reverse the encryption and read every single PM that was stored in the DB at the time of his coping it.

He is now banned from all Avlis controlled media.
Any posts made by him supposedly containing quotes from private forums or PM's need to be read with the idea in mind that he will not be happy about being banned, and by stealing our data and the intellectual property (ie Avlis modules) he has shown that he is not to be trusted.

We are sorry for this breach of your privacy, and have changed all of the PW's that were stolen, with the exception of your forums accounts. (you need to do those)

Thanks for playing on Avlis.

-Alexandru Stanicu
World Leader, Avlis Team

[Speedracer]

Burn.

[Pathos Street]

what about the wiki?

[Alexandru Stanicu]

what about the wiki?

Not sure, checking on it...

MadK@? Ninja?

[NayalaGelbert]

How do you change your forum password? Sorry if it's obvious, but I couldn't figure it out.

[Katroine]

How do you change your forum password? Sorry if it's obvious, but I couldn't figure it out.

User control panel
Profile
Edit Account Settings

[jaythespacehound]

User control panel (top right)
Profile (on the left)
Edit account settings (now below Profile)

EDIT: Kat is quick

[Gorgon]

Please change the title of this topic to something people will notice more, like "Everyone Change Your Forum Password Now ~Not A Joke~"

*edits* Making it a global announcement might not be a bad idea either

[Nighthawk4]

Please change the title of this topic to something people will notice more, like "Everyone Change Your Forum Password Now ~Not A Joke~"

*edits* Making it a global announcement might not be a bad idea either

Good idea - I edited the title to make it more clear.

[Ambrosia]

Do we need to change passwords for other CoPaP forum accounts as well?

What about Keys and Gamespy IDs, etc?

[Darkfire]

Please change the title of this topic to something people will notice more, like "Everyone Change Your Forum Password Now ~Not A Joke~"

*edits* Making it a global announcement might not be a bad idea either

Good idea - I edited the title to make it more clear.

No you didn't.

[Grunt]

Do we need to change passwords for other CoPaP forum accounts as well?

What about Keys and Gamespy IDs, etc?

If you use the same password on other COPAP forums, change them to something different than each other. Don't make it the same as on the Hades forum, for obvious reasons.

CDkey should be safe.

GSID password, only change it if it is the same as your forum password was.

[Themicles]

The CoPaP.org, Tairisnadur.com and Ysgard.org forum databases are safe. However, if you used the same password on all sites, I would recommend that you change your passwords.

It would be unwise to also change your passwords on the Hades or Outlands websites to the same one you're changing the other sites to, as they are hosted by him.

[Gorgon]

Also, changing your Gamespy password if it is similar to your forum one is a good idea....

http://nwn.bioware.com/my_account/editlogin.html to change it. Same password for their site as the login in most cases.

[Hamlet]

Thanks for the "Not a joke" clarification etc. At first I really thought this was a joke. Shows how much I know.

[jaythespacehound]

That was my first reaction too Hamlet.

[Toadyx]

My first reaction was ... why?

As in - why would someone do that?

T

[Significant Owl]

Consider this a small bump.

[Snow]

This should probably be put in the Avlis announcements forums so it's on the main page. I almost missed it.

[Significant Owl]

You should probably be nailed to the forums. I almost missed you.

[Pathos Street]

Please make sticky global announcement in Avlis News.

[Snow]

You should probably be nailed to the forums. I almost missed you.

:o

o:

[Darkfire]

Please make sticky global announcement in Avlis News.

It was for quite a while. All day yesterday, other than that not sure.

[Jo' d]

Alex sez:

...Zebranky got a hold of a PW...
...With this he has the ability to reverse the encryption on forums PWs and log in as someone else.

Could we have an informative (think low level internet law savvy here) post with pertinent info, as to the legal ramifications this char 'Zebranky' has opened himself too, by his actions? Do we have anyone speaking with this person in RL? Do we know who he/she is in RL? I have changed all my PWs (copap wide), but still do not understand the tech as to what he learned and any effects it could have on my internet exp or my privacy.

Sorry for what may be lame questions, I suspect Im not alone in the community as to being a little (in truth, 'little' doesnt do me justice, 'seriously' would be closer to the mark) deficient in Techspeak literacy.

Thanks Team!

Jody

[Brayon]

With this in GD...

Basically Jo'd, with the Password he took, he was able to download the Databases for the forums and the Vault, and the Mods. Using other programs he could go through that DB, and get your Username, Password, E-mail address, PMs that were saved, what other accounts are attached to your IP, etc. He could then post on the forums as you, read any PMs that was attached to your account in the DB or live on the forums. Go to other CoPaP forums, try the Password/Account there, if they are the same, and do the same things on that site.

I could be wrong, but I believe in Florida that what he did falls under the Felony Fraud charges. Also, I believe Federaly, he could be arrested for Wire Fraud, due to getting this across state lines.

The most disturbing part of the above to me, is the fact he got the mods. I can only imagine seeing them posted to NWNVault... If he gets my password, and unlocks my PMs, or reads an e-mail... Then he would be quite bored.