Stolen Account !

After the update my sister couldn't sign in to her account. She contacted support, no answer yet.

I was in our shared SL house and saw her avatar there and it ran from me. My sister was sitting next to me someone has stolen her account. She NEVER gave the password out.

What do we do ? I'm scared they might buy lindens with the credit card . What do we do ?


Torley Linden:
This sounds scary — I hope you hear back from support soon, your sister already did the right thing in contacting them.

OMG! Cancel the cc data on the website! File an abuse report and make sure to say that the password was never given to anyone!

Mandy C

IF this is true and your sister's account been stolen, chances are the password has been changed, hence why she couldn't login. IF this is the case then you won't be able to login to her account info either to change details of her CC etc, because it uses the same login info for SL that is does for website

Yes you need to contact Linden Lab asap and inform them what has happened.

True, this is a criminal act. And yea Papillon, you're right...I forgot about the password.

Mandy C

Also contact the credit card company right now to prevent unauthorised use of her card. As long as you are not at fault, you may get back money that was taken out already. But if you wait on reporting this, they may consider it your sister's fault and not reimburse.

Thank you for the suggestions everyone.

It's the weekend and they don't answer phones !

We cancelled the card . It is frustrating trying to contact a live person at Linden lab now.

I never knew this was possible. It is very scary.

I tried to file an abuse report but it will not file it without a name to file the report about and I

don't know the hackers name.

You should run anti-spyware and anti-rootkit software on the computers she used to log into SL it may be that her computer has been compromised. Simply resetting the password may not be enough if her computer is infact compromised in this fashion as it would just send out the password again.

Edit: I have brought this to the attention of LL (by flagging the thread for Linden Review), it may take a few days for LR to pass it along to the right people at LL.

I just have to say that having your avatar stolen/hijacked is possibly one of the most unsettling thing. My condolences to your sister. I do hope that the worst that happens is that she needs to create a new avatar.

Good luck!

This is the internet. Hackers, virusses, trojans, spyware and whatnot are out there.

It is a pet peeve of mine that LL doesn't require credit card authorisation every time I use my card to buy lindens. That way would be much safer, because even if your SL password gets compromised, the 'account thieve' can only burn your in-world assets instead of cleaning out your credit.

Definately what Strife said. If it wouldn't ruin the day, a format and reinstall might be easier than chasing malware around the system.

Also, if she used that machine for any other sensitive online activities - online bank access, other credit card accounts, she will want to make sure she covers those bases as well.

For all kinds of useful information, see:

http://www.identitytheft.org/

zk

Just to update everyone. Someone did steal my sister's avatar and the credit card information. They bought over $1000.00 worth of lindens. We finally got hold of Linden Labs and they are investigating.

This pisses me off. I never knew this could occur. We had a very difficult time reaching Linden Labs to notify them when we first knew someone had stolen the avatar . They could have stopped it immediately but there is no emergency number.

I saw the avatar in our shared house and my sister was sitting next to me in real life ! We couldn't believe it!. It was immediately after the last build update that she couldn't get in with her password.

How could this have happened? Do we call local police? What authorities handle this?

I am so sorry this has happened to you... I really am

If your sisters account had an actual credit card attached to it, then the credit card company should be called as you get a lot of protection with them, and that may help get the stolen funds back. Credit cards work differently to most usual debit cards.

I think I would want to call the police, I would be so upset, I am so sorry this has happened to you.

Oh, thank you so much. I'm pretty upset. Have you heard of this happening on SL to other residents? This does mean that even if we have no payment info on file we cannot be very secure.

I would hate to have to start all over with nothing here. Yikes !

Contact the credit report companies like Equifax or Transunion and tell them that this happened. You can possibly prevent the thief from completely ruining your credit. They can also stop new lines of credit from being opened in your name without some further identity verification steps. Since identity theft is so common these days, the people you contact should be very familiar with the process.

Sorry this happened to you. I hope this doesn't become a widespread problem in SL.

Sadly, I expect we will see more of this type of thing. LL has unfortunately [and probaly inadvertantly] given many people the idea that just about any sort of scamming or theft in SL is allright, or at the very least that while LL may disaprove in the abstract, they will do NOTHING about it. The thieves and scam artists probably have the idea that they can get away with about anything...after all "Code is God." Many residents feel the same way - that LL regards it as "open season" against residents.

Unless and until LL steps up and starts taking affirmative steps to curb these kinds of situations, they will continue. Its as simple as that.

You can call the police, but they probably won't do much. The dollar amount is not enough for them to act. What you can do is when you regain control of the account take a look at transactions. See who your AV gave gifts and/or lindens to while not in your control.
I used a similar method when I had a cellphone stolen. I check the calls online and saw who they where calling and just called them up and did a little social engineering (said "Hey, my friend just used my cellphone to call you but I need to call him, did he leave a number with you?" and got the real name of the person who stole the phone. Called them and asked for the phone back or I will call the police. They returned it.

I would definitely contact the local police department and file an identity theft police report. This is a serious criminal matter. Your sister's personal information and items of monetary value (linden dollar licenses as well as intellectual property) has been compromised.

Having your police department investigate and contact Linden Labs would resolve this crime faster than you would be able to do yourself. All the police needs is an IP number of the criminal that logged onto your sister's account at the time to locate him/her/them and proceed with further legal action.

If the IP number of the criminal is outside of the US, then there isn't much legal recourse at your disposal. At that point, all that's left is damage control; reformat your sister's computer, place security measures on her computer, have Linden Labs change her password, get a new email address, change her password and email address on her SL account and try to go on with her life, being cautious of who has access to her computer, what websites she visits and what software she installs on the computer that she logs into SL with.

On top of that, tell her not to share her password or make sure her new password isn't something that's easy to guess and uses both letters and numbers.

Go to your local library, find a complete, unabridged dictionary published before 1920, turn it upside down and face down, close her eyes and open to a page 1/3 up or down from the table. Find a word you've never heard of on that page and pick it. Reverse the spelling to backwards. That is your letters for you password. Now take the page number that you found that word on and multiply it by 5 and reverse the product then divide that number by 3.....round to the nearest whole number. That is your numbers for your password. Intersperse the numbers and letters in an unequal way and assemble your new password.

Let some joker guess that.

If the person tries to cash or transfer the lindens, can't they be tracked? There will be a "paper" trail right?

BTW, Strife, you rock! Keep doing what you are doing. The community appreciates you, these days more than ever.

lol, they will just have to read the paper I write that password one!!

suna45

Am I right?

After memorizing your new password build yourself a charcoal fire in your bbq grill and get the coals all bright and glowing. Go to your shredder and take 15 blank pages and rip in half along with the paper you wrote your password your on........shred it all, one page at a time. Stir the shreddings vigorously and take to your charcoal fire and burn by placing small amounts at a time on the hot coals. Once the flames die down go get your hamburgers and cook them for your afternoon meal.........enjoy.

Let some joker read that.............LOL

better would be s4Un5a

i can't help noticing your join date Shimmer. September 2006.
When i think of that month and Second Life, I think of this:

Official Linden Blog: Urgent Security Announcement

Out of curiosity, did your sister join before 6th September?

The join date in the forums is the date you joined the forums. I have a join date of April, 2006 here............my SL birthdate is February 9, 2006.