🔒 Account Break-ins
In late June, a small number of (mostly inactive) accounts were broken into and stripped of everything they owned.
Every one of these break-ins happened the same way, through the lost-password flow. If there's one thing to take from this, it's to change your email password and use one you don't use anywhere else, because a compromised inbox is keys to all of your digital accounts.
Once they were in, they emptied the account. They listed everything in the account's own shop for a single point and bought it through throwaway alts, then moved on to the next account. We caught it, froze the accounts doing the buying after an investigation (and ensuring they didn't have access to any more accounts), and reset the passwords on the accounts that were broken into so they couldn't be touched again.
Then we went back through the shop logs and rebuilt, item by item, exactly what left each account. Everyone who was hit is getting a fresh copy of everything that was taken. Stolen gift cards come back as Cash Shop Credits rather than new cards, credited straight to the account. You can see your own list on the returned items page.
One honest note about custom wearables. Most of the stolen items had already been resold, at fair prices, to players who had no idea they were buying stolen goods. There were thousands of those sales, and unwinding them would only turn thousands of innocent buyers into new victims. So we left those purchases alone and gave the original owners fresh copies instead. That does mean a handful of custom wearables now exist in slightly larger numbers than they did before. Returning people's items is worth that to us, and I would make the same call again.
If you were affected and something still looks missing after all this, open a ticket and we'll help as soon as we can.
Every one of these break-ins happened the same way, through the lost-password flow. If there's one thing to take from this, it's to change your email password and use one you don't use anywhere else, because a compromised inbox is keys to all of your digital accounts.
Once they were in, they emptied the account. They listed everything in the account's own shop for a single point and bought it through throwaway alts, then moved on to the next account. We caught it, froze the accounts doing the buying after an investigation (and ensuring they didn't have access to any more accounts), and reset the passwords on the accounts that were broken into so they couldn't be touched again.
Then we went back through the shop logs and rebuilt, item by item, exactly what left each account. Everyone who was hit is getting a fresh copy of everything that was taken. Stolen gift cards come back as Cash Shop Credits rather than new cards, credited straight to the account. You can see your own list on the returned items page.
One honest note about custom wearables. Most of the stolen items had already been resold, at fair prices, to players who had no idea they were buying stolen goods. There were thousands of those sales, and unwinding them would only turn thousands of innocent buyers into new victims. So we left those purchases alone and gave the original owners fresh copies instead. That does mean a handful of custom wearables now exist in slightly larger numbers than they did before. Returning people's items is worth that to us, and I would make the same call again.
If you were affected and something still looks missing after all this, open a ticket and we'll help as soon as we can.
Posted by Keith
GirlWhoPlaysGuitar
And the fact that you're returning all the items and csc to the users is unbelieveable. Really hard work and it shows how much you care <3
Thank you for all your hard work and transparency. It's not obvious at all.
Would you ever consider implementing 2FA?
Would you ever consider implementing 2FA?
I have several not safe for Subeta comments on this, even as one thankfully not hit by this, but I will say this and it is safe for Subeta: thank you for the hard work surrounding this and then to openly post about what has happened, it speaks volumes. Let's hope it's the last for a longer time and the cretinous fool gets smacked with a good shot of FO for their FA.
Is that why there was a sudden influx of custom wearables in the donation center and for super cheap? Huh. Well, glad that staff was able to more or less get things back as they should be. Keep up the good work!
good work! Hopefully the person responsible realizes theyre not welcome here if they cant play by the rules!
Thank you so much for considering all sides of this. I make a habit of going through my wishlist to see if any desired hard to get cws end up listed and i cannot even explain my excitement when i saw so many in a shop thinkin someone was quitting - ran to buy csc and as i was purchasing some cws from the shop (quite a few) the user was frozen and the items went to display only. I figured they were hacked and created a ticket offering to give back the items if this was the case, as dissappointing as that felt.
I find it really respectable that you considered how those who were able to get cws theyve had their eyes on for awhile would feel in this scenario as well - solidified the fact that I will not be quitting as long as this site exists. Thank you!
I find it really respectable that you considered how those who were able to get cws theyve had their eyes on for awhile would feel in this scenario as well - solidified the fact that I will not be quitting as long as this site exists. Thank you!
Oh jeez. I think I bought something from one of those accounts - a short while ago I bought a "Yellow Present Cookie" from a shop for only a couple SP that I picked up while updating my SubetaLodge foods for my pet. I kept the cookie for a couple days just in case the owner didn't intend to sell it for so low, but I eventually figured maybe they were doing a clean out of their stock and just wanted stuff gone so I fed it to my main :(
Like others I also saw a few rare items have their last sale price at ~1sp, but I figured the same thing - people cleaning out old stock, or a quick way to throw items to friends or something instead of using trades. The thought that anyone could target a pet site of all places didn't even cross my mind.
As usual thank you for the transparency and for all the hard work you guys have put in, both now and in the past <3
Like others I also saw a few rare items have their last sale price at ~1sp, but I figured the same thing - people cleaning out old stock, or a quick way to throw items to friends or something instead of using trades. The thought that anyone could target a pet site of all places didn't even cross my mind.
As usual thank you for the transparency and for all the hard work you guys have put in, both now and in the past <3
Thankyou for your hard work and for the transparency!! I appreciate everything y'all do for us <3
Genuinely, thank you for both your honesty and your hardwork. Bad actors are everywhere and it's not your fault when they go out of their way to breach security-- because any security can be broken if you're determined enough. Stay safe, everyone.
Crazy that people have the time and energy to do all of this for something that doens't really matter that much in the end.
Maybe this can also be a reminder to the rest of us users as well that sometimes we don't always know what's going on behind the scenes right away, stuff like this happening that could be causing delays because staff have to run around putting out fires instead of doing the fun parts of their jobs.
Maybe this can also be a reminder to the rest of us users as well that sometimes we don't always know what's going on behind the scenes right away, stuff like this happening that could be causing delays because staff have to run around putting out fires instead of doing the fun parts of their jobs.
RudeI wasn't affected (thankfully) but wish to thank the staff for their efforts in this matter!
Halfway through the news story I knew exactly which account it was 😒 They were the reason I suggested that users we block shouldn't still be able to buy from our shops.
Anyway, thank you so much for making the effort to restore everything, Keith and staff. I hope I didn't buy any of the stolen CWs, or that ones I got in a giveaway weren't stolen :(
Anyway, thank you so much for making the effort to restore everything, Keith and staff. I hope I didn't buy any of the stolen CWs, or that ones I got in a giveaway weren't stolen :(
just changed my login stuff. this hit me and i lost over a thousand items accumulated over my time on the site. Thank you all for all the hard work to get our stuff back to us!
I just wanted to say thank you so much for putting in that hard work to restore all those items and credits to the affected accounts! It's things like this, where you and the team really show that you care about the site and the users both, that make me love Subeta so much. Restoring my belief in the good <3
> Across every account that was hit, we're returning 52,339 items and 326,300 Cash Shop Credits.
Woweee, what a heist! I appreciate that you guys went to the effort of chasing everything up, probably more thorough that most law enforcement.
Woweee, what a heist! I appreciate that you guys went to the effort of chasing everything up, probably more thorough that most law enforcement.
I was questioning a newwer account i kept seeing in my shop and when i viewed their it was an insane amount of rare items.... that makes so much sense and is so annoying thank you Keith and subeta team for going through all these steps and updating us when you could.
Wow, how ridiculous. Thank you for caring for your users, even the inactive ones.
Sad that this cost so much time and energy! :c
Sad that this cost so much time and energy! :c
Holy cow! I never saw any crazy prices so you guys must've caught a lot of it but that's so sweet of you to make those custom wearables to those who were affected <3 The world is so crazy right now and to have chaos come here too is heartbreaking. Thank you for all that you do guys!
I know my two cents means absolutely nothing coming from someone who just collects CWs and doesn't create, but I would rather there be 1,000 of an item than 10 if it means it's the right thing to do.
I know my two cents means absolutely nothing coming from someone who just collects CWs and doesn't create, but I would rather there be 1,000 of an item than 10 if it means it's the right thing to do.
This is crazy and very odd. Thank you for returning items and cash shop credits to those who are affected. That's very sweet ❤️
Oh wow that is crazy to hear -- and.. why?! So bizarre. Glad you were able to recover those users lost items & what not...
@Kieth Jerk it is then! Plenty of those in the world, Farside even did a comic.
Sorry you had to even deal with that, but thankful you took care of it and made good those who were affected. Unlike some other site that will remain nameless who years ago told a whole bunch of hacked users "too bad, start over" XD
Sorry you had to even deal with that, but thankful you took care of it and made good those who were affected. Unlike some other site that will remain nameless who years ago told a whole bunch of hacked users "too bad, start over" XD
Wow, this is scary! I am so glad staff traced them down and caught the thieves/hackers. That is awesome that staff replaced all the stolen items. I guess it is time to redo my password to be safe. I always try to use two step verification on all my accounts. Good job staff.
I did notice a crazy amount of purchases from my shop by the same username that now it's frozen..
Keith
STAFF
@Searchname We're pretty sure this is a user across virtual pet sites doing the same thing, so I think just... likes doing this :/
Yikes, I can't believe people have the time on their hands and the cruelty in their hearts to do this sort of thing. I'm glad the team caught it and are handling it so well! Like others have said, I wonder why they did it? It's not like they can gain any real word money or resources from this, what's in it for them??
I wonder if the point wasn't simply to wreck other people's good times- someone (s) with a grudge against the site, the owner or the users. Or just jerks who get their jollies wrecking things for other folk, like how people do swatting and what not out in life, or the old school yard bully who felt like they were big beccause they made others small.
Regardless, changing passwords regularly and making sure the email one is strong and unique is good practice.
Thanks for letting us know what was going on!
Regardless, changing passwords regularly and making sure the email one is strong and unique is good practice.
Thanks for letting us know what was going on!
Why would people do this? I don't get it. If they are normal users, they are bound to get caught and lose everything. If they are strangers, who are able to hack e-mail accounts, it makes even less sense to brake into a game. Surely they must have better ways to "become a rich Subetan" fast and rather have other goals in life. This is just sick; but so is much of the world around me nowadays and it's getting worse by the day...
I'm sorry, staff had so much work and hassle on top of everything else :-(
I'm sorry, staff had so much work and hassle on top of everything else :-(
It's bizarre that someone would go through so much effort for rare items and customs when there's no way to turn that into profit IRL. It would have to be someone who knows and cares about rarity and distribution of virtual items but somehow doesn't care about stealing from other users, and is dumb enough to think they wouldn't be caught. Like, what could the best result of their actions have possibly been? It's pointless.
Wow, very scary. Glad you guys were able to get the items back to users affected. Thank you so much to staff for all the hours spent making things right.
Now, could bad people stop messing with stuff so y'all can focus on the fun things instead?
Now, could bad people stop messing with stuff so y'all can focus on the fun things instead?
wow, i was noticing a bunch of rarer items would have crazy decreased prices (half price or more) according to its 'recent price' but those numbers weren't showing up on shop autopricers nor shop search. i'd check some on the item directory and see some items had sold for 1 sP. i thought i was going crazy or that the systems had a glitch!!
thank you for doing what you could for those affected, even if some inactive players may never return. their accounts deserve to stay exactly how they left them, precious items and all!
thank you for doing what you could for those affected, even if some inactive players may never return. their accounts deserve to stay exactly how they left them, precious items and all!
Keith
STAFF
This is the largest scale one of these that we've had in a long time, potentially ever (the exact numbers are on the returned items page) and it took a lot of time and effort to roll back these purchases and changes, both from myself and the entire user administration team. days of pouring through logs, trying to make sure that we were connecting all of the dots and had all of the right information for users, and then building out an entire system to be able to return those items to everyone.
I know it's going to be frustrating that there are extra duplicates of some custom wearables out there -many were deleted on the accounts that were still there, but there were many that had to be created from thin air.
I know it's going to be frustrating that there are extra duplicates of some custom wearables out there -many were deleted on the accounts that were still there, but there were many that had to be created from thin air.
That's a surprisingly large amount of crime for something that isn't going to make any real difference in the lives of those committing it.