I felt it was well worth re-posting this as it seems to be the source of a lot of hacked accounts. The information was found by Skaw but I think it needs to be put as a sticky here:
Some sound advice:It seems there is a spate of this [ACCOUNT HACKING], both here and in the US, driven by forum posts that link to pages that install key loggers:
http://community.codemasters.com/forum/ ... p?t=371139
http://community.codemasters.com/forum/ ... p?t=370988
(some tools: http://free.antivirus.com/clean-up-tools)
- Install RUBotted from trend. It's free and it watches what is being transmitted OUT of your machine. I have caught things with it before that neither virus scanner or anit-spyware noticed (It turned out to be a DLL that was being autoloaded into servicehost process - only got rid of it with Hijack this)
- Get rid of Internet Explorer NOW and never use it again. It isn't safe! Firefox 3.5 is much safer (though not immune)
- DON'T clicky on ANY external links in the LOTRO forums for the time being. It's not just porn posts that are causing this, it seem it is also embedded Java code
- Use a virus scanner that checks links in your browser automatically and stops you hitting a site by accident (AVG is FREE and the free version checks this automatically [EDIT: removing my personal opinions on virus scanners but would recommend you read up on it ]
- Use a spyware removal program. Spybot search and destroy is free, reliable and should only be downloaded from a reliable site (like CNET or safer networking)
- Make sure you DON'T use the same usernames or passwords for accounts as you do for messageboards. That way people can't get your other stuff from your board account
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD and I will update here.