Was someone spreading a third party software or add-on that compromised a number of accounts?
I have not seen an announcement from SSG about compromised customer data, which I believe is mandated under MA law, which is one of the toughest in the country. They would open themselves up to serious liability if they knew something and did not report it.
We don't know what's causing it, and that is why we are asking for communication. It's all speculation at this point. The only thing we know is that it's happening. And yes, they are treading into legally treacherous waters. Not addressing this, and stonewalling the community, is negligent. They are enabling fraud.
There are a few different issues going on.
One are accounts being hacked, and fraudulently charged, then the shards used to buy otto's boxes and moved to other accounts via auctions in bulk. I've seen half a dozen posts about this in the past few months. This could be tracked, but they don't. Pure laziness, negligence, lack of caring, I don't know ... but they could track auctions, track accounts making these kinds of purchases, track IP addresses, and have actual knowledge and actionable steps to prevent this. And they don't.
The other main issue is people logging in, and it being the wrong account. Somehow, it puts us into someone elses account even though we have used our own personal credentials. Most of the time, people get left alone. I've heard rumors of characters being deleted and other shennanigans, but most DDO players are not malicious. So when this happens, most of us just log out. It's still a massive security issue.
We do not know if this is how people are getting access to accounts and comitting fraud.
We just know that the fraud is happening. SSG's customer service has been telling people it's OUR fault, and that we have malware on our computers. There are multiple reports from the community with this response. This is a highly inaccurate and downright insulting response, but blaming the players is SSGs standard go-to. There has been discussion about this on Reddit, and elsewhere.
So really ... what we have is a full on clustermess. Multiple concurrent issues, with zero transparency or communication from the devs. But, that's how SSG always has been. This is just serious enough that they need to do something and say something.
Trust is gained by drops, and lost in buckets. This is a massive hole in the bucket.
