ArenaNet has released a new game status update on the official Guild Wars 2 wiki, letting people know how it's been dealing with the problems of hacked accounts.
Recently it was announced that hackers had been changing their email many, many times in an effort to find the message "this email is already in use." If that was discovered, they would then use lists of passwords and logins hacked from other games to try and attempt a login - thereby stealing the account. In order to counter this, Arenanet is now banning any account that it deems hacked, specifically ones being used for botting or spamming ads for gold sales. It recommends that if you attempt to login and see the message: "this account has been permanently banned for a violation of the User Agreement," and you haven't been using the account illegitimately, then you should contact customer support.
This is the second time that ArenaNet has "permanently" banned accounts, and then let them off. Initially it was doing so when people exploited a mispriced item, shortly after reinstating players that promised to get rid of their ill-gotten-gains, after a 72 hour suspension. Somewhat redefines what the developer means by permanent.
ArenaNet is also recommending that if players receive emails for authentication of a login from a new location that they didn't initiate, that they should immediately change their password as it's likely that a hacker is attempting to access the account. However beneath this part of the status update, it says that a secure password reset system has yet to be fully implemented, so you will need to wait until tomorrow (September 8th) before you can reset it.
Last night's fixes involved tweaking capacity restraints on parties and guilds, as well as issues with a couple of specific quests. Tonight ArenaNet says it will fix issues with parties not staying together as they travel into dungeons, as well as adding an option to stop queuing for home worlds - for those that want to remain on overflow servers for a while.
The full list of updates can be viewed here.
