Simone’s Account Hacked
by prokofy on 11/03/07 at 3:16 pm
Prokofy Neva, Community Affairs
Prominent Second Life designer Simone Stern reported to the Herald today that her work account had been hacked this morning and L$400,000 stolen (an estimated $1500 US) from the account.
In a heist similar to another large theft two weeks ago at DarkLife, the hacker first transferred funds from Simone’s work account, an avatar named Rica Wolfe, then to another day-old alt, Rica Beck, and then evidently on to a third day-old account MandyLynn Bailey. The day-old avatars were not online available for comment.
Simone contacted the only Linden she could find online, Hermia Linden, a liaison on duty, who was not able to do much other than to tell her to change her password and call the Lab Monday morning, and apparently was unable to authorize freezing of the account. Simone has pleaded with the Lindens to freeze the accounts pending investigation. LL takes 5-7 business days or more to cash out Lindens.
Not even her long-time RL partner knew the password on the Simone and Rica accounts, says Simone, because she had recently changed them, and no employees had the information. The money on the account included proceeds from her successful fashion lines, which have put her at the top of the list of SL avatars with profitable businesses, as well as proceeds from charitable activities.
Simone has been active in raising money for Ayshe’s Angels, helping a young woman with brain tumours, Ayshe Millions, obtain medical treatment for acoustic neuroma. She had just completed a yard sale yesterday to add to the more than $15,000 US already raised in the past year to help Ayshe.
Simone was alerted to the heist when she saw a notice on her email account that someone had logged in and “received inventory” on an account that she herself was not logged on to. She then saw that not only was $400,000 missing, but that the thief also sent a $5000 “gift” back to the Simone account, either to taunt her or to help cover their tracks and confuse any investigation.
Ayeshe Millions of South Africa also had access to Simone’s work account, Rica Wolfe, as she was the recipient of the funds raised for treatment, but the passwords had just been changed, as they are routinely, said Simone.
In the drama-saturated, back-stabbing fashion world, know for its jealousy and vindictiveness in Second Life, Simone says she has been getting some criticism for her efforts to raise money for one individual and demands for accountability from one particularly persistent critic. Simone says the expenses for trips to New York for treatment are documented. A supportive community of people familiar with the case and the activities have been very active in sustaining the SL-based effort to turn virtual dollars into concrete help, and following regular reports of amounts raised on the Ayshe Angels blog.
Simone says she has no idea whom to suspect, but that the Lindens could stop the damage from being done by freezing the accounts and preventing any cashouts to PayPal or checks. “The Lindens have the audit trail,” she said.
“Obviously this is an alt of someone who knew this was my work alt, knew there was money on the account and knew to hack it,” she said. But that could be anyone logging on to Second Life, as her work alt is listed as the owner or creator of objects in her high-traffic store, and her charitable events are heavily publicized.
FlipperPA Peregrine
Mar 11th, 2007
Ack, this is horrible, Simone’s a wonderful person and a good friend. So sorry this asshat did this to you.
Veronique Lalonde
Mar 11th, 2007
This totally sucks. I hope LL figures out how such a thing happened, and that somehow Simone can prevent herself from being victimized again, and others can prevent it completely.
I wonder if this means one should never keep much money in an avatar account at a time but instead should convert to RL currency as often as necessary to reduce the balance in L$. This is clearly not the most secure bank on the planet.
babydoll
Mar 11th, 2007
im really sorry Simmy
you dont deserve to be treated that way
Allana Dion
Mar 11th, 2007
“I wonder if this means one should never keep much money in an avatar account at a time but instead should convert to RL currency as often as necessary to reduce the balance in L$. This is clearly not the most secure bank on the planet.”
*nods* Every week.
But it shouldn’t need to be that way. LL has the means to investigate the account histories, determine where the money belongs, and fix it all in a matter of minutes. They have international clientelle who need and deserve 24/7 customer service. A business like theirs can not be run on a M-F 9to5 schedule.
I’m so so sorry Simone
That is just awful.
janeforyou Barbara
Mar 11th, 2007
This is so sad,, it makes me mad as hell! We herd of it before, there was a whole mall ripped away a few mouths ago with cash and all, i dont know how to secure any better then to change the pw all the time, more secrure systems are needed, if thay can get to one thay can get to all! And thats mills of RL USD!
Rock Ramona
Mar 11th, 2007
Makes me sad to see a friend stolen from and hurt.More and more people everyday getting screwed as LL sits back and does nothing,the list just keeps getting longer…..so sad..huggs Simone
Tenshi Vielle
Mar 11th, 2007
Oh, PISS. this makes me angry!!! Simone’s a good friend.
Rosa
Mar 11th, 2007
Awful news, I hope this does get fixed ASAP.
Gillian Waldman
Mar 11th, 2007
This is very disturbing. they should hack locked the account immediately…shouldn’t matter that it’s a Sunday
Gillian Waldman
Mar 11th, 2007
errr, should *have* locked the account….
Nacon
Mar 12th, 2007
Sure doesn’t sound like something that “Plastic Duck” or Goons could do.
(cause they’d leave a lot of attention into the masses of SL for jokes)
However, the taunt gift is quite an astounding thought. Meaning if it was to taunt her, then I’m sure it’s someone who is very close to Simone in real life that has turned against her. Revenge that is.
Without any doubt, that’s a well planned out… in fact, “but the passwords had just been changed, as they are routinely, said Simone.” I’m betting it’s someone who IS very near by her in real life. Able to watch the password change or realized her routine basic more than anything else. I wouldn’t call it an “hacker” job, more of a “listening/watching” job.
Security seem like the case for Simone… a very poor self-security.
Hexx Triskaidekaphobia
Mar 12th, 2007
L$ 400,000 seems like a huge amount of gold to have readily available at all times. I have a feeling Miss Stern would have done better to put most of it away in a safe place.
That does not change the fact, of course, that Folk should keep their greedy hands off other Folk’s belongings. I trust that the Lindens will ban the evildoer’s IP for eternity, when they track him/her down.
A week of exposure at the pillory in Linden Village and a descent flogging might do him/her some good as well.
FlipperPA Peregrine
Mar 12th, 2007
Just one tip: if you have an account that people knows a receives a lot of money (like I used to with Commerce Leader, the SLBoutique bank account), it’s often a good idea to have a second, unknown account that you can easily send money to. In my example, I couldn’t cash out the money, because it was other peoples’ for use on SLBoutique, but I only kept enough cash in the Commerce Leader account for day to day operations, minimizing the risk. Hopefully Simone will bounce back, she’s always had a good spirit.
Carl Metropolitan
Mar 12th, 2007
Simone Stern is one of the nicest, most ethical, and most helpful people in Second Life. Sadly, there is a loud minority in the SL fashion world who are both jealous of and threatened by talented, hard-working people in that business, especially people–like Simone–who don’t take crap from anyone. I strongly suspect one of these types (hiding behind an alt, of course) is responsible.
Linden Lab needs to investigate and resolve this immediately.
Maxwell
Mar 12th, 2007
The lot of you need to get a damn grip and realize that this happens all the time on standard websites.
The indignant reactions of many of you say, to me, that you honestly think this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often and that each and every instance should be treated as some kind of National Security breach.
Get over it. There is only one way to prevent these things from happening: Do not use the internet for any sort of financial reason.
Cocoanut Koala
Mar 12th, 2007
^ someone take his money.
coco
m
Mar 12th, 2007
That’a a Horrible thing to Occur, a friend of mine also does Yearly Charity work in SL, and it would be a Heart rending thing to have happen again.
I have a question for Clarification:
>Simone says she has no idea whom to suspect, but that the Lindens could stop the damage from being done by freezing the accounts and preventing any cashouts to PayPal or checks. “The Lindens have the audit trail,” she said.<
If Simone has no idea whom to suspect, then who’s accounts does LL Freeze?
Or is it being suggested that ALL transactions be frozen until this is sorted out?
By sounds of it there Is something of a Money trail, But the thief, or thieves have in short order sent the money through three dummy accounts so far, By now, How many hors, or days since the Occurance, How many More times could they have flipped the Money, and to How many different dummies and alts? What if they used a Vending machine, Owned by one alt, but keyed to Pay the Money out to a Different one? The potential for Virtual Money laundering is almost endless. If these people are devious enough to figure out How to hack Simones account in the first place, then they would by Inference be devious enough to Plan a Good escape as well.
I’m Sorry to Say, I think Simones Money is gone for Good. LL has Some ability to pursue (and punish) the thieves but beyond that i think their Real focus should be on determining How the hack was Done, and Close it BEFORE this escalates, and we hear weekly, or daily stories from Dozens of Other “Simone”s
FlipperPA, Excellent Advice.
Maria.
Maria LaVeaux
Mar 12th, 2007
Odd, my whole signiture didn’t come up on that last post.
Maria.
Prokofy Neva
Mar 13th, 2007
>If Simone has no idea whom to suspect, then who’s accounts does LL Freeze?
Or is it being suggested that ALL transactions be frozen until this is sorted out?
By sounds of it there Is something of a Money trail, But the thief, or thieves have in short order sent the money through three dummy accounts so far
Simone meant the transactions associated with those day-old alt accounts. They’re not likely to endlessly keep passing the funds, but will try to cash them out quickly.
She could at least see those alts, and ask the Lindens to freeze those alts. It made it through three jumps, and evidently one of them was visible to a Linden who commented on one of the names and asked Simone if she knew that person. And it’s not hard for the Lindens to page through accounts and see where it’s going. At some point, the person will land and wish to take out money. They may be forced to distribute it over several accounts, but in theory it seems to me the Lindens can watch the PayPal cashouts and see if anything turns up.
Maria LaVeaux
Mar 13th, 2007
That makes much more sense, But Prok, you and i have both been exposed to people with Multiple Alts, I was for example Scammed by a Person who, By the time i Stopped counting, had Well over a Dozen Currently active, All Payment Verified accounts. I have heard Since my scamming incident, the Scammer had been at it several times more, and Each time, a different Payment verified account. Someone told me the scammer had in excess of fifty of them active at a time. I don’t think that they Endlessly Flipped the Money, but i think they May have done it enough to Muddy the waters. Do the Lindens look for One $1500.USD cash out, or several $100, and $200 ones?
I hope she gets her money back, But by now, i don’t think she will. I think we Both agree Faster response would have stood her a Better chance.
Maria.
Maxwell
Mar 13th, 2007
Hate to break it to you miss Koala, but I have neither a Second Life account )not interested in it, just the news around it) nor any sort of online account which requires funding.
Jonathan Sprawl
Mar 13th, 2007
This is simply an outrage, and really another in the long list of reasons that SL service is completely inadequate to support the level of business they wish to host. My heart goes out to Simone who worked hard to earn that money and had noble purposes for it.
Maxwell’s posting is as misled as they come — of course the Internet is a vehicle for finance and commerce. However, all sites that succeed at it offer very standard protections, not least of which is rapid and vigorous investigation of and prosecution of suspected fraud. LL must step up to the plate on that or risk losing the trust of all their customers, which is the beginning of the end of SL as a commerce platform should it happen.
I call on Linden Labs to use this highly publicized theft to demonstrate the effectiveness of their controls. Let’s keep the public spotlight on it until it is resolved one way or another!
Kirill
Mar 13th, 2007
Threaten to take LL to court. Right now if they continue to pull ‘company policy’ shit, thats all more ground for an inside job. Good luck recovering that money.
Kirill
Mar 13th, 2007
Sorry to double comment, you can trace account transactions in SL. Simone needs to check who’s account recieved money from her. After that, you can see where all money went.
Tenshi Vielle
Mar 13th, 2007
Sigh. Okay, listen:
1) Simone isn’t positive who did it.
2) LL freezed an alt account of Simone (I think that’s what she meant in conversation) but has not refunded Simone the money she lost. Why are they hoarding it?
3) Beyond that, there’s not much to be done… unless you’re an over-60 year old amazing programming whiz that also steals textures…
*coughcough*
Simone
Mar 14th, 2007
XD
Okay, after two days of the Lindens investigating this, enduring my frantic phone calls, and being all-round *darlings* about handling things, the situation’s reached resolution. I am not 100% sure of the status of the accounts of the offender, and frankly, I don’t give a rat’s hairy butt. However, the Lindens did return the money in full to me today. Someone got the corporate office’s street address? I wanna send pizza and roses…
THANK YOU TO THE LL TEAM! *waves her hands like she’s at a Unity Church meeting and ‘sends’ Looooove*
;-D
Simone
Nacon
Mar 14th, 2007
Yay! It all goes with a happy ending… but still haven’t learned a damn thing about the thief.
(sound familiar, anyone?)
Charity Colville
Mar 14th, 2007
I am happy to hear a solution was reached Simone. When you told us about this the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I began fearing for every designer and charity organizer in SL. There are several VERY active and strong charities doing very aggressive fund raising at the moment and it is scary to think of what can happen. I’ll chip in for those pizzas and roses and throw in a case of beer. Bless you Simone…you especially did not deserve a raw deal.
*now if they can only fix the rest of the grid like they did Simone’s problem*
YHelloThar
Mar 14th, 2007
Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And Id like to take a minute just sit right there
Ill tell you how I became the prince of a town called bel-air
In west philadelfia born and raised
On the playground where I spent most of my days
Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool
And all shooting some b-ball outside of the school
When a couple of guys said were up in no good
Started making trouble in my neighbourhood
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared
And said youre moving with your aunte and uncle in bel-air
Maria LaVeaux
Mar 14th, 2007
I never thought she would get her Money Back.
I was wrong, and I’m extremely Happy i Was wrong, Congratulations Simone.
Maria.
Dalian
Mar 17th, 2007
Simone I’m glad this worked out for you.
Yesterday it was brought to my attention that a friend of mine in game, who doesn’t own any stores or anything, was hacked. They emptied her bank account with L’s and transferred them to a “false” account as LL stated. Right now they basically have told her that she’s out of luck. Which doesn’t make sense. They have to have access to where this was cashed out two and who did it. I think they did put a hold on her account last night.
She has given her password to no one, really doesn’t know that many people in game. But somehow someone got into her account and pulled all her funds from her bank, turned it into L’s and transferred it to another account to cash out.
So this isn’t just happening to Simone or to business people. Something is going on and it needs to be stopped and dealt with severely.
Red Dutton
Mar 20th, 2007
i can say there has been now a couple of attacks like this but several it dosent matter if someone knows your pass work but the thing is who you dont know that will hack you pass(or moded ll viewer nor to take a pass) i have only changed my pass when i feal a threat of being hacked like recently i started in a difernt location from where i ended (sex area near my home) and i wonder where the heck am i? i dont know this area ( i dont travle much around my home sim) so i tped home and then realised the 2 second tp i was in my home sim. and no one knows my pass so how did they get in my av or did they get in my av? i still dont know i have to get with ll to see ip logs (i wish they would have them on the main login for residents to view thier ip logins) but after i get me ip logs i will be able to say who hacked me user(s) and contact local athorities for prosecution and then linfrm ll of beinf hacked (what am i saying they NEVER DO ANY THING to hacked accounts exept LOOK THE OTHER DIRECTION (makes me wonder if they hack thier clients accounts?)) also i have helped catch a hacker that use ginko to transfer the funds of the users so if you dont already go get a ginko ccount and set a web pass on the site so YOU DO NOT BECOME NEXT ATTACKED USING GINKO!
(my personal oppinion Ginko does not have any Security Measures for this kind of attacks and should not be Opperating like this it any one can create and ithdraw to paypal instently thery ginko with any paypal account.)
Babyblues Boffin
Mar 21st, 2007
This Story Really Bothers Me And Is Similar To My Own Receint HACKING.
I would like to share my story about ‘MY HACKING’ that took place about a month ago. I had 2 of my accounts ‘HACKED’ and NO ONE had my passwords and there was no keylogger. I had 140,000 in Lindens stolen from my accounts and the L’s were transferred to Ginko accounts in my Avitars names it was then sold immediately for USD and transferred from the Ginko accounts web site to PayPal to the ‘HACKERS’ E-Mail Address account.
The morning that I discovered that I was ‘HACKED’ I logged my main character in and she logged into a sex club that I have never been to ..and her L’s were 0.00 so I logged my Alt she also was logged into a sex club but this was a Furry Gay Sex Club and her balance also was 0.00. The transaction pages for my accounts still were not updated to show me where the L’s went….I had contacted live help and had asked for a Linden…Hermia Linden responded and told me where my L’s went but could not give me any other help.
As soon as the Lindens office had opened up I had contacted them..they were absolutely no help at all they had me contact support,which had me contact billings and billings had me write exactly what had happened and to ‘Flag It As Attention to Kelvin’. When I didnt hear anything from them I had contacted billings again and they had said to contact ‘Support’ that it was not their dept, which I did and I had told my whole story all over again to a Linden in Support and the end results with the Lindens were …because my L’s were transferred to Ginko I had to talk with then on it and the Lindens considered my ‘HACKING RESOLVED’.
I did get the ‘HACKERS’ IP ADDRESS and E-Mail Address from Ginko Financial and with a little persistence my Lindens were returned to both my avitars and Ginko had assured me that they were demanding a Reverse on the money with PayPal and that they would insist on prosecution.
It really was not the missing Lindens that bothered as much as my feeling of being ‘VIOLATED’and the ‘Fright’that knowing someone can enter my account without having my password which I am 100% positive about, AND the passive way the Lindens treated this whole thing. I now play this game with the knowledge that I have NO PROTECTION and game play is at MY OWN RISK.
Pops
Oct 1st, 2008
What this shows is that Linden doesnt give a tinkers damn who makes money as long as they do. If you leave a lot of money on a game server anyplace in cyberspace you leave yourself open to this sort of sillyness. Linden is not a trustworthy bank and should not be treated as such. Foolish people always get burnt!
Kaya
Apr 16th, 2009
wel i can only comment on how “holy” miss Simone is, being profiled as a doing well and so concerned with others.
i ve worked for her a while, she now does make it seem as i never did, but i ve got prove.
she never bothered to pay me, instead after sending her a note inworld sl explaining why i wasnt online a while, she choose to call me all names that you can think of, calling me crazy for she had records that i was in her employment for over a year, and asking me, crazy person where i was all the time. when pointing out to her she was mixed up and i was only for 3 months in contact she decided to mute me, or simply choose not to respond anymore, after several realy harsh and offending ims from her side.
i asked her to contact the person who recommended me to her, as to proove i was not lying, and she got mixed up in names or dates, but to that she never did respond.
so far, the well doing person hiding behind an sl avi.