Having taken up the difficult topic of theft of user accounts in online games, I decided to simultaneously seek a consultation with a specialist who works directly in the field, if you say so, crimes in online games. I agreed to answer my questions Leonid Zaitsev , head of the company's investigation department Mail.Ru Group. From the conversation below, you will learn what cases are in practice and how the support service reacts certain situations.
But before, of course, I recommend reading our title article "How (not) lose your account" , which is waiting for you literally at a distance one click of the mouse.
The conversation with Leonid began with the warning that all data on investigations and requests are strictly confidential and no exact information will be reported. But nothing prevented the gives to give examples of typical game situations, without names, names of games and other specifics.
[Gambling] First tell us what your responsibilities are in the company?
[Leonid Zaitsev] I will coordinate the work of the investigation sector, including myself, I am conducting investigations, I work with user requests. In total, we have five specialists in this sector. We work with Perfect World , " Almotes ONLINA ", Jade Dynasty And " BOMZ! ".
[Gambling] On game sites and forums, collections of tips are often published on how to protect your account. What can you say about these tips?
[Leonid Zaitsev] All tips can eventually be reduced to one: “Be vigilant! ". 95% of hacks occur “thanks to” the carelessness of players. Somewhere he introduced his account, someone a month ago reported the data of his account, unsuccessfully talked with an unfamiliar “girl”, telling her a bunch of information … There is no seven span in her forehead to understand that each such action will sooner or later lead to later Inevitable.
From the first line to the slaughter department
For each affected player, his case is the most urgent and important, and it can be understood: now minutes are dripping, and at this time the attacker is already moving away with bags of the loot. Therefore, having submitted a request to technical support, after half an hour he begins to panic: “They do not answer me!".
It is important to remember that technical support employees are also people, and the support system itself is a complex mechanism with many departments and instances. For the request to reach the right employee, you need time. Sometimes – a lot.
[Gambling] How long does it take to expect an answer from your service and when to start worrying?
[Leonid Zaitsev] On the so -called first line of technical support, the guys work daily and around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. In average about twenty minutes (in the prime time, waiting can drag on for an hour, and sometimes they respond at night almost immediately) The player is already given the first answer. If he completely filled all the fields, told what he has access to, what he does not, the first line makes a decision (banks the account during the investigation or simply recommends changing passwords) and puts a request in line in the queue.
After 3-7 days (depending on the loading of technical support), the request comes to us-specialists of the investigation sector. We conduct an investigation, return access to the player, block violators.
The investigation sector works according to a different schedule, it has a weekend and holidays. Typically, the full cycle from filing a request by the player to our last response takes from 5 days to a month.
[Gambling] up to a month? Why so long? From the side, not knowing the details of your work, it seems that you need a couple of hours a maximum. I looked at the logs, interrogated the victims, made a decision. In practice, differently?
[Leonid Zaitsev] In practice, of course, everything is more complicated than in theory. Often (yes almost always) users do not say something (for example, that they sold an account through a third-party resource). In addition, communication with technical support is not in real time, but rather like postal correspondence.
Enthusiasmer for one account. What the law will say about this?
[Gambling] Suppose I’ll buy an account, and all the information will be given to me – a passport scan, a disc code, secret issues, registration mail and so on, and then I will lose it. I can prove that he is mine?
[Leonid Zaitsev] A little difficult question. If you buy it, and then lose everything, with some probability we will remind you some registration data; But this, of course, provided that there will be only one request, from you. If then its original owner comes, you will never prove anything here. For starters, you have different IP addresses. In addition, do not forget that sellers and buyers often somehow show, for example, in chats, that the account is sold or bought.
It happens that two owners come and almost one-in-one provide data on accounting. As a result, the account, of course, goes to the ban.
[Gambling] Often in guilds playing for a long time and successfully, an unspoken voluntary exchange of accounts is practiced: let's say, the head of the guild and raid-leader know the accounting data of three or five people in order to enter them, to chop or sew, pull out something with urgent need. the desired item is from the chest or just participate in the raid, if this class is very needed. How technical support relates to such practice and whether such a program is punishable if everything is calm and smooth and no one complains?
[Leonid Zaitsev] Yes. The so -called "ball" (from English. Sharing – approx. Ed. ). In fact, the scourge of all online games, and not only games. This is found not only in guilds – among acquaintances in real life, this is very often practiced.
In general, it is prohibited by game rules. But most often we do not conduct investigations (t.e. Do not bath a violator or limit ourselves to a warning) if, as a result of such a sharing, someone was stolen from someone. Less commonly by preventive banks for both participants.
[Gambling] That is, so far no one loses anything (and if it loses, it does not complain and understands it yourself), there will be no punishments? And if someone is in reality, in the spirit: "And Masha today plays Petit's character"?
[Leonid Zaitsev] True, it all starts with a request-pages in support. If there is any evidence (Masha accidentally rattled in the chat that she plays for Petya) and I want to ruin life (as it were, to fulfill a civic duty), write to us, we will figure it out.
[Comment from the editorial office] Really, nothing stimulates the rules of the rules as the presence of ill -wishers!
The investigation is led by Kolobok
[Gambling] I stole an account, on it was a hero with a bunch of epic shins and a sword of thousands of truths. The account was returned, but the hero is completely naked. You can get a sword back?
[Leonid Zaitsev] No. Just this mail.Ru Group and differs from some others: the refunds are not made. Sad but True.
[Gambling] Apparently, because you can easily agree on how to theft of an account with a friend? There will as a result of two swords: a friend has stolen, and the source character “returned” by the support service?
[Leonid Zaitsev] No, there are no two swords: the one on which the “stolen” will be in the ban. And specifically for this example: both will go into a preventive ban for the introduction of the administration into misleading. Such precedents were already.
[Gambling] That is, usually the subject can be tracked?
[Leonid Zaitsev] Yes, of course, this, for the most part, is the investigation: tracking the gears of stolen items, analysis of connections, analysis of the chat logs and so on.
Well, for example, the story of a hacking a group of persons by prior conspiracy is just like in the Criminal Code, in the "Particularly difficult" section. One young lady, being the leader of the clan, did not like some of their guild comrades much. It’s really unclear whether out of envy, or out of hooligan motives, but I wish a group of friends to hack her and undress her. Initially, the criminal group totaled two girlfriends, but later two more guys were added to them. Despite the fact that the happy https://sister-site.org/richprize-casino/ four did not even know how to write without errors, they acted rather harmoniously. They scouted that the password of the leader of the clan knew two of her officers, and created a character with a name similar to her nickname. The data pushed out under the pretext “I forgot the password, I will change. You remember my previous one, well, name … "
The next rather smart move is to use a proxy server for hacking. Then, for a long time, the hackneyed clothes were twisted, reselling and trying to “wash” the stolen. Finally, they collected all the loot on one Twinka and began to wait. Three weeks every day in turn went to the account and checked whether they banned or not. For three weeks, we also went into the tools and checked whether we transferred to the main characters or not: without these programs, the evidence base was incomplete. As a result, completely confident that they forgot about them, the guys divided the clothes together and after a couple of hours got into the ban.
And the leider clan, by the way, was banned a month later for the use of bugs for selfish purposes.
[Gambling] And yet. Why, returning the stolen account, you do not return the things that were stolen from it?
[Leonid Zaitsev] A similar practice is dictated by our user agreement, which states that players must independently ensure the safety of their accounting data. We provide all the conditions for the game – this is our area of responsibility. Part of the responsibility lies with the players: compliance with the rules and ensure the safety of your account. My personal opinion, if the players are sure that everything will be returned to them, up to the last gold coin, then the attitude to the account will be appropriate: why do I need a difficult password and why should I think about which sites to enter my account if the administration is still Everything will return.
In fairness, it is worth noting that we are still thinking about the introduction of some compensation for losses. So far, such ideas remain at the level of projects, but perhaps in the future compensation will be provided.
[Gambling] And there are innocently affected? For example, a knight will suit me and give a ring, and then it turns out that he was stolen. They will believe him, they will put me?
[Leonid Zaitsev] If he reports that he stole the ring with a hacked character, then, most likely, not the most pleasant conversation with support is ahead. If this is exactly the gift … Usually we ignore such gifts.
Do not be afraid, but protect yourself
[Gambling] You said 95% of losses occur through the fault of players. And this means that there are still 5%, when I really "I did nothing, it is in itself". For what other reasons can such a misfortune be shaking?
[Leonid Zaitsev] Well, in general, in fact, all 100% of our cases – through the fault of the players: or passwords are easily lend themselves to brutiva (automatic selection -. Ed. ), or the players themselves in one way or another transmit the account. The main reasons for loss of access: phishing links, sales-exchange of accounts, notorious ball. Equally, approximately 30% of cases for each. We have never stolen a database.
[Gambling] That is, the selection of passwords also occurs due to the fault of the player?
[Leonid Zaitsev] To choose, for example, a 7-digit password with numbers and letters of different register is actually unrealistic. I think it’s more correct to say the “player’s fault”, but “responsibility”.
[Gambling] There are horror stories that the entered passwords are saved in the game files, and if you put the client on the torrent, then terrible specialists can stretch them out of there. Is there a share of truth in this?
[Leonid Zaitsev] The client may preserve the login (and even then, I'm not sure). But the password is never.
And “terrible experts” are engaged in brumbors and phishing in other areas, they have no up to game customers.
[Gambling] Are there any games that can be called potentially dangerous-in which hacks and losses of accounts are especially frequent? And vice versa, are there any completely safe games from which they almost do not turn to technical support on these issues?
[Leonid Zaitsev] It’s more likely not even about the game, but what for the server. It is clear that on the official server people are baking about the security of the players, and on the pirate nobody guarantees such a thing. And so – it all depends on the number of players and how long ago they launched the game: in the same Perfect World for us, it is completely normal for us to have 200 requests in line. And in "Bomz!", Which has been launched relatively recently, is already 10 pieces is considered a critical indicator.
[Gambling] Let's take some living example, say, "Allods online". In this game, the login on the forum is the same as for entering the server. This brings additional risk? Or, if I behave decently and do not throw passwords, I can not be afraid of anything?
[Leonid Zaitsev] If you behave decently, you can be sure that the account will not break. And not only in "Allods". Account protection is approximately the same: the gaming login is tied to the forum account, it is also a mailbox. We generally have a pretty “cunning” that has this ligament: a forum account – a mailbox. For owners of drawers on Mail.ru, they are identical (they do not have the concept of a forum account at all), for the owners of other addresses – different. Completely securing the registration mailbox, you can do a lot for account safety. In general, more often people come to us with the problem “forgot the email address”, and we also work with them.
[Gambling] is it worth it specifically for the forum to register the “left” account and write only from it, or is there nothing wrong with the fact that the login is visible to everyone?
[Leonid Zaitsev] If you behave decent, you can be sure … and so on. But it is quite possible to start a second account specifically for the forum. If so calmer.
Cases from practice. Leonid Zaitsev comments
_Leonid commented on players' stories about how they lost the account. You had the opportunity to read all these stories in the article "How (not) lose your account" _.
I got acquainted with the girl in the game, we went to instr, she said I cool. Then I spoke to Skype with her and she says you want my pictures. I say of course. She threw off the file to me, says open you will see. I tried to open but did not open. Well, she says probably something broke, then she will throw. And then I went to play and then I threw me off and I can’t enter the password wrong.
One of the common types of players who come with the problem of loss of access. Unfortunately, a lot of users at all have no idea about security problems on the network. Such players will simply break if they do not open any file that they sent to them unknown. The result is usually predictable.
And the cracker himself wrote to me later. VKontakte. An idiot you say. You have a secret question “Favorite Film” on your soap, and in the profile – as many as three favorite films. Akk he returned me later, he only leaked the money. Good got caught.
Social engineers are not uncommon in our projects. There are real shows among these comrades. One of these created a female character for himself, wandered around the virtual world and exchanged addresses of mailboxes with players, choosing especially well -dressed, with high -quality “guns”. Having received the address, climbing in the pass, a password on the secret issue) and bred the owners of the boxes to the names of the first pets, the girls' girl's names, etc. Seeing the “Passport Number” in the next box, the attacker first was a little confused, but after a couple of minutes the desired question came to his mind: “You are so interesting … I'm sure we have a lot in common. Tell me, what is your passport number, most likely I have similar ". It’s hard to believe, but it drove: an hour later an “interesting player with a passport number” already wrote an application for access.
He is my best friend, we play together, I went after his Persians, he is for mine, when it was necessary. I believe him, he did not steal, it is not him!
The guy and the girl met in the game and got married in the same game. But only instead of rings and kisses they exchanged passwords and often played for each other. The guy was quite secured and often made gifts to his virtual beloved – expensive clothes and pets. Six months later, such a “joint life”, when it was already impossible to understand in the logs of sessions where the account was, the young man suspected his beloved in treason (by the way, in treason is virtual-they reported to him that someone of her character regularly wears in his arms, and she wears in his arms, and she wears It seems like it does not mind). The guy without a second thought enters her account, takes the most expensive gifts (by the way, by the way, in a couple of his salaries), and then reports to the global chat, which is all over between them. The young lady in tears – already real, how to play further, disgraced and without shins, and, of course, writes us a statement about hacking ..
As a result, both were given a ban for a month and warned that when such accounts are repeated, they would go already in unlimited blocking. How their story ended, we do not know, but they did not go for each other anymore. By the way, these two have never met in life: he is from Khabarovsk, she is from Moscow.
Yes, I am for myself, or something? For the raid, everything is! If my tank is fourth there, and with mystics a problem, then what should I do? Re-swing, and let the raid wait a month or two? So I decided – I’ll change it, albeit for unprotected and unusual, but several days – and you can in a raid.
The third hacked tried to sell or exchange their characters. In half the cases, sales of accounts are thrown: buyers receive accounting data and say “adios”. In the other half, sellers receive their fowl (real money or game values), and then throw buyers, contacting technical support with a complaint on a hack. In all cases, both sellers and buyers receive an unlimited ban. Particularly energetic players manage to sell their account three to four times, assuring customers that it remains to wait a bit: they say, tomorrow you can use the character.
The editors thanks for help in organizing conversations Mail.Ru Group.