Hacking Protection: Avoiding Spyware and Keyloggers on your machine
I had an anonymous comment in my last entry, and thought to write an entry on Hacking Protection as a result.
Spyware and Key logging "trojan" programs on your computer are a serious security threat when it comes to the hackability of your Runescape account.
A few rules to help you keep clean of these trojans:
- Use a different browser than Internet Explorer wherever possible. Some sites won't work without IE, but many of the spyware that comes from websites was developed specifically to exploit Internet Explorer weaknesses. Considering over 80% of all web traffic is done through IE, it's a good investment for them. I recommend Firefox. It's fast and it comes with security built in that IE lacks upon install. See the link at the top right of this page to download Firefox for free.
- Don't download "hacks" or programs that are meant to enhance your Runescape experience. If it's an official program, suggest the author submit their software to Tucows or some other large well-known repository, and download it from there later. You could be installing a key logger or the program could straight out ask you for your password and then pass it on to the maker of the software!
- Download Lavasoft's Ad Aware SE - the free version if you're using your home computer. Then, make sure all aspects of it are updated (when you first download it, there may still be updates you need to download immediately after installation) and then let it scan your drives. This may take a while if you, like me, have large drives. It's worth the wait but you might want to let it scan overnight if you've never scanned before.
Remove *ALL* of the things that Ad Aware SE finds. You may have to right-click the list and choose "select all" before proceeding if you have a long list. I had a friend with over 700 items in this list the first time we cleaned his computer up. - Download Spyware Search & Destroy (these can both be found in Tucows directory) and do the same things as in step #2. I find that these two programs work nicely together to keep my drive clean, with my doing weekly scans.
And as is standard these days, get a virus scanner that runs on your machine all the time it's on, and make sure the virus scanner keeps up to date. I personally use Norton with its LiveUpdate feature, but you may prefer something else, or your computer may prefer something else ;) I've had virus programs severely slow down my machine's performance and even crash it, while on other machines that virus program works just fine. Do what works, and what doesn't cause you headaches.
Keep your computer clean. It's an important step in protecting your account from being hacked.
posted by SingleGrrl @ 10/06/2005 05:46:00 AM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
This is the best website ever.I come on for all my help.
if any hackers and scammers visit this site u should teach me some good hackin and scammin techniques cuz im bored of doin evrything the right way.
i lovwe this site, helped me tremendoulsy.
btw, i am falken110 on runescape
i luv this site! help me a lot
i am falken110 on runescape, add me if u wanna
nice blog and nice information about rs!
Spyware has nothing to do with hacking...
1.) Unless you want to try and SQL injection(which probably wouldn't work), you're not hacking anything. If u type lik diz such as "Anonymous" over there, you'll be laughed at and ridiculed for being such an idiot. You wouldn't understand anything about hacking, much less simpler things such as HTML and Brute Forcing.
2.) Scamming proves you have no real life.
Thnks new players will realy like this!
Thanks dude... This helps alot... Not to me, but to many :)
Why I Disagree with Jagex's Policy of Hiding Information on Scams and Lures
We'll talk about scamming and luring in much more detail in other sections devoted to them. By way of summary for the purposes of this topic, these terms refer to players who use lies, tricks, bugs and dishonest tactics to cheat victims out of in-game items, to get them to go where they will die, or to steal their accounts.
Jagex gives very limited, generic information on how to avoid being cheated, but deliberately provides no specific details on common scams and lures. Their reasoning for this is that they feel describing these tactics will worsen the problem by telling more people how to do them. I and many other experienced players strongly disagree with this view, for three main reasons:
1. The Policy Simply Does Not Work: Scamming and luring have become rampant within RuneScape, getting worse every year. Jagex can suppress the information on their site, but they have no control over what happens in other places. Cheaters and scammers don’t operate out in the open—they scurry around in the shadows, sharing information through informal networks. As soon as a new exploit is discovered, it becomes common knowledge quickly.
2. The Policy is Grossly Unfair to New Players: Those who have been around RuneScape for a couple of years know that charcoal is worthless, or to watch out for the “magic log / willow log” swap, or to never go upstairs in the Rangers Guild to do a trade. But unless you are a player yourself you probably have no idea what I was just talking about-and neither do new players! Jagex's policy sets these new players up to become victims, which is especially unfair given how many are kids and teens.
3. The Policy is a Self-Serving Cop-Out for Jagex: It seems to me that trying to keep quiet about scamming and other negative behavior helps Jagex present a more positive image of the game, to help the company's business. It also allows them to continue avoiding making necessary changes to eliminate scams and lures. Consider a software company that has a security flaw identified in its software. Does it try to prohibit discussion of the flaw, or blame those who found the flaw for the problem? No! The company acts swiftly and decisively to fix it. This is what Jagex should be doing: spending its resources to eliminate problems, not spending resources on hiding them.
It's time for some openness and some action.
As an added note, let me say that there are some scams where I do not provide all the details. The reason is that in some cases, the scammer needs to know more specifics about pulling off the scam than the victim needs to know in avoiding it. In those situations, I will omit the additional information that I feel is not required by the victims.
Finally, there are a couple of scams that I have learned about as I have written TruthScape that seem to have fallen out of favor - that is to say, they could still be done, but I've never heard of them being used recently. To avoid “reintroducing” these older scams, I do not describe them on this site.
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