TruthScape.com  9  The Truth About RuneScape Account and Password Scamming and “Hacking”       9  The Basics of Account and Password Scamming and “Hacking”

Understanding Password and Account Scammers and Hackers Understanding Keyloggers and Other Malicious Software (Malware)

“I got hacked!” “I got hacked!” Sheesh, I am so tired of hearing this. Lately, it seems like you can't spend five minutes in a busy area of the game or on the RuneScape forums without hearing players bemoaning “getting hacked”. From the way people go on about this, you'd think that the Internet was crawling with millions of evil hackers dedicated to doing nothing but going after poor RuneScape players.

What's going on here? Well, there are really two issues. The first is that people constantly misuse the term “hack”, and the other is that good old staple of the RuneScape community: dishonesty.

When someone says they were “hacked”, what they usually mean is that someone stole their password, or was able to get into their account by some other means. The problem with the term is that it implies that a nasty “hacker” targeted their computer system, found some sort of security flaw and exploited it to steal their account name and password. It brings to mind stereotypical scenes from movies about computer crime, with the evil computer genius typing special codes to let him tap secretly into the victim's PC.

Well, this actually does happen, but only rarely. The reality is that most of the time that someone is “hacked”, it is not because some brilliant hacker found a way to sneak into the victim's computer. It's because the victim did something careless or foolish that gave the scammer access to their account.

The constant use of the word “hacked” is a pet peeve of mine. I consider it a cop-out used by people who are careless about account security. It's a problem because it deceives them into thinking they are innocent victims who have no control at all over “being hacked”. Put another way, the difference between legitimately being hacked and what most people do to lose their accounts is the difference between an expert thief breaking into a car, disabling a car alarm system and hot-wiring it—and someone casually leaving their car's doors unlocked and the engine running.

The other issue is that many people have used “I got hacked” as a reason to ask others to help them with gold and items to help them get back into the swing of things. Beggars have now caught onto this game; they know they are far more likely to have people give them stuff if they say “help I got hacked” than if they just use the old standby of “need free stuff”.

When someone tells you he was “hacked”, there is really no way to know for sure if he was really hacked, was thoughtless with his account, or is just making the whole thing up to assist him in begging. Obviously, you will need to decide if you want to help the person; this will depend, in part, on how well you know the individual. I have in the past given people gold after “getting hacked”, but as always, I did it as a friendly gesture, assuming that I would never see the money again.

As for the subject of the rest of this section, your objective is simple: don't leave the car doors unlocked and the engine running!

Understanding Password and Account Scammers and Hackers Understanding Keyloggers and Other Malicious Software (Malware)