China Bans Gold Farmers – Time For Care

Posted by Stropp on June 30, 2009

Or perhaps another, but much longer, title to this post could have been But Nothing Ever Happens In The Way You Expect…

My first reaction to the news that the Chinese government has banned gold farming was that it was a huge step in the right direction. It won’t shut down the gold selling industry, but it will hurt this particular group of sociopaths who engage in shady and downright criminal behaviour at the expense of a whole range of other people.

That’s a big woo hoo right there.

But gold farmers have shown that they’re not above criminal practices to make their gold. Expect to see a big rise in the number of account hacks and keylogger malware as these people desperately try to recoup their losses.

It’s probably a good time for a warning to be really careful with your account. Do the following:

1. Update any virus or malware scanning software you use. That’s a good idea at anytime really.
2. Don’t use Internet Explorer, it’s still the most popular browser in use and thus a huge target for hacks. Firefox is pretty good, but it’s also widely adopted which makes it less secure. Try a newer or less popular browser like Opera, this makes it less likely that a malware webpage will be able to exploit your computer. I’ve been using Google’s Chrome which isn’t bad, even if it’s still a bit rough, but it has some decent malware detection.
3. Don’t give your account details, including username to anyone. If you have a character with a name which is the same account username give some thought to changing one or the other.
4. Change your password — regularly. Use a strong password, ie. Not a dictionary word, use both upper and lower case letters AND numbers, and if possible use punctuation; Oh, and use a minimum of eight characters.

There’s a whole ton of money in the gold selling industry. Just because one avenue for cash gets closed down, don’t think for a minute that the people who profit are going to pack it in. They’ve already shown that they are quite prepared to engage in fraud and other nasty practices to get your money. Now that there are (less) legitimate means to farm gold, they’ll likely turn to the illegitimate.

Like I said, even good things don’t always have the results that you’d expect. Be careful with your account.

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