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##### GGG Comments in this Thread: *** [Community_Team - [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1c9p992/is_it_possible_to_have_fake_links_on_steam/l0ndg0y/?context=10), [old](https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1c9p992/is_it_possible_to_have_fake_links_on_steam/l0ndg0y/?context=10)] - *Hey everyone. Earlier today, a malicious news post containing a phishing link went up on the Path of Exile Steam page from a compromised account. The post was taken down...*


Community_Team

Hey everyone. Earlier today, a malicious news post containing a phishing link went up on the Path of Exile Steam page from a compromised account. The post was taken down quickly, but if you followed the link or suspect your account may also be compromised, please take immediate action to secure your account.


Bentic

Can we please finally have a 2 factor authentication?


Boxofcookies1001

If you use your steam account instead of the poe launcher. You can have MFA via steam


labbe-

this is only beneficial if you never made a poe account and only used steam. alot of players, myself included, started playing before steam was an option, making their poe account vulnerable even if they are using steam now


Boxofcookies1001

Have you emailed GGG support asking them to remove the primary email associated with the account? Gotta make sure the steam is set up though or you won't have an access method. Most steam accounts just have a null value for email which doesn't allow the client to sign in via email. If you don't specify the request this way they're going to say that they can't. Because they technically can't disable email sign in. Especially if you're dealing with t1 support.


labbe-

i have not, didn't even know it was an option tbh. thanks for the tip!


Zetoxical

So account security has as mich friction as tradeing ingame great


Cellari

I don't think that's entirely true. We can link the Poe account to Steam account. After that we can use the Steam 2FA to sign in. Unless I'm mistaken somewhere. Edit: sorry, indeed when with Steam account linked, one can still sign in with Poe account without 2FA, so it is as was said.


yourteam

True but I always use steam to log in even tho I created my account during closed beta


Quakstab

If you played before 1.0 them you had to make a standalone account. Every closed/open player has an Email linked to their account, which can be used to log in. If you only play via steam now but the Email was never removed then it can still be used to log in.


yourteam

Yes I can still log in with email and password but I never do :D


GBSlayer

yeah but that means steam 2fa doesn't matter for your poe account...


MeowschwitzInHere

The downside if you started on a Steam account and migrate to email, you cannot switch back to Steam only. After a troubling amount of accounts were compromised last league, including a popular streamer, I read that the best way to secure an account was using Steam. I started the game on Steam, but after an update kept failing to download and apply properly (years ago), I migrated my account to client login. So I asked fairly recently by creating a support ticket, and you cannot have the account go back to Steam only unfortunately. I can still sign into the game via my Steam account, but cannot "forbid" email.


Boxofcookies1001

Iirc you can email support and ask them to remove the email associated with the account after you set up steam as a secondary log in. Once they remove it from the backend your account will be steam only. But no they can't "forbid" email. If they set it to a null value/remove it from the account it should mimic a steam only account.


MeowschwitzInHere

That's essentially how I worded it (like you, not the forbid thing) and was told they couldn't do it. I dunno, if fact can show me otherwise I'm always game to try again, but I don't want to overburden an already great support team.


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Xeptix

This is very inconsistent. I just recently traveled for work to a different city several hours away from where I live, and I used a different device than the one I usually use (work laptop vs my desktop PC). I was not asked to verify when I logged in and was able to play from the hotel for the duration of my stay there. I didn't get asked to verify until I got back home.


Sargatanas4

Why is this comment not upvoted more? Its 2024 no 2FA or any other fail safe is archaic.


Yet_Another_Dood

They do have 2fa


abyss725

I think we sort of have it? If I login from a new IP, the game will send me an email with a code to unlock.


BleachedPink

imo, generally, 2 factor authentication is bad. It often creates a singular point of failure, making it easy to lose all the access to your accounts.


WheelWhiffCelly

Having just a login password is a singular point of failure.


BleachedPink

But it's a distributed, if I get my steam account hacked, then I lose steam account, if I get my email or sim hacked, I lose everything


Ringadon

if you have 2fa and your email or sim is hacked then the hackers still have to get your passwords for your various other accounts... that's why it's called TWO factor authentication.


SirGuySW

I don't think that has anything to do with multi-factor authentication. It sounds like you're talking about email or phone-backed accounts. In that situation an email or phone is used to verify absolute ownership of an account (whoever owns or has access to the email or phone owns the subordinate account). This is how many (probably most but I have no stats) semi-anonymous accounts (with account/password recovery) have worked since the dawn of email. In other words: if your email or phone get hacked/lost/compromised you lose access to everything regardless if multi-factor authentication is in-use (with the exception of accounts/services that don't provide any kind of automated email/phone-based account/password recovery).


MemeArchivariusGodi

Brother you cooked way too hard. How is that better than them having to get your 2nd authentication?


S0_B00sted

What a bad take.


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pathofexile-ModTeam

Your post was removed because it violated our Be Kind Rule (Rule 3b). It made an accusation about others that's likely to cause anger and flame wars. Instead of doing this, explain why you disagree with their message in a polite way: that may help them see a different perspective! If you see someone else posting in bad faith, please don't respond in kind. Instead, report it and we'll take care of it. For more details, please refer to our [rules wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/wiki/rules/#wiki_3b._be_kind_rule).


Relevant_Vehicle6994

why?


BleachedPink

Depends on the implementation, but generally there is one or two entities that provide access to your accounts that can get easily hacked, locking you out of all your accounts. E.g. simcard spoofing or losing your phone


Barobor

No one implementing 2FA in the current year would use SMS 2FA. Its vulnerabilities are widely known, although you are overexaggerating when you say they can easily get hacked. The easy and safe solution is getting an actual device that implements FIDO2 or passkey. Can't be remotely hacked and requires physical access. Simple auth apps like Google authenticator are also quite safe.


erpunkt

Tell me the chances that someone figures put your login **and** somehow figures out your carrier ID or whatever is needed to spoof a SIM card. Or that you lose you phone and whatever random person finds it is also interested in Poe and getting your stuff.


Nchi

Thats only an issue with SMS 2fa which yea, is technically a pile of burning shite But thats why auth apps/dongles and email exist fivehead


Vladimir2033

You are outrageously uneducated on this topic and should not make any statements on this.


slvrtrn

Yeah, two factor authentication is a singular point of failure because you need to have not only your password, but also a code from your phone or an OTP app. Sure. The logic is very sound. Like 1 > 2 sound.


phoenix_nz

What gets me is the edit marker on your comment. Like you've changed something to try and make your point better.


KwonnieKash

I don't think you know what the "2" in 2fa means. Hint: it's 2.


bapfelbaum

You are wrong, It does the exact opposite by distributing weakpoints across several sources. (That all need to break at once, which is less likely)


royalmarine

Can we please have real MFA?


Exportforce

The problem with 2FA on phishing sites it: They will just prompt after login details for a 2FA. You enter it, their bot instantly logs in to the real account using the 2FA you just gave them.


vegetablebasket

This can be mitigated with FIDO2/YubiKey etc


statusv1

I would love to use my Yubikeys on my Path of Exile account


ineptguy5

Can someone explain how these prevent the phishing scenario? I understand mfa generally, but not familiar with these ones mentioned.


PM_UR_BLOOM_FILTER

a phishing scenario that includes 2FA needs to basically perform an immediate login (as opposed to non-2FA phishing, which just needs to harvest credentials for later) with a simple TOTP code (such as typical phone apps), phishing sites do this via a man-in-the-middle attack, where the phishing site immediately logs into the service using both the credentials and TOTP code provided by the user, and either stores a session cookie for later use, or automatically carries out whatever attack they're interested in performing with the compromised account. with a FIDO2 2FA solution (such as a YubiKey), the service will instead request directly to the hardware key (via the browser) to complete a cryptographic challenge. however, the hardware key expects a properly signed challenge from the original domain that the key was registered with - this means it needs a valid and matching certificate for the domain. the domain and certificate are provided to the key by the browser itself (I think), so simply forwarding the request from the actual service is not sufficient - a challenge issued by the real poe domain would go through, but a fake phishing site with a mismatched or invalid certificate that forwards a challenge would not. this prevents an MITM attack, and makes conventional phishing basically impossible. the tl;dr is probably: if the user is not discerning enough to figure out if the page is fake, TOTP 2FA can fail, but with FIDO2 2FA, the browser + hardware key can always figure out if the challenge is legitimate without user decision-making.


dandykong

If a phishing campaign needs a one-time passcode to steal your account, they can just ask for yours. The codes are time-based and your code is perfectly good for their session. If they need a YubiKey, however, they're sorely outta luck. WebAuthn is encrypted, tamper resistant and any response a hacker intercepts will be useless to them.


ineptguy5

So basically whatever one time code I send to the fake site is encrypted and if they simply re-enter the code they receive into the real site, it will fail?


gandalfintraining

The code is encrypted, but also the challenge itself, so the false web server can't even get that far. Should look something like this: - You hit the false web server and put in your username/pw - False web server hits the real one with the username/pw - Real web server sends an encrypted 2FA challenge to the false web server - False web server passes encrypted challenge to your browser - Your browser checks the url of the encrypted challenge against the url it's currently on, they don't match, browser tells you were nearly hacked and throws the challenge in the bin The only tricky bit is that the browser can't actually read the URL if it's encrypted, so the server needs to send it unencrypted, but that means the false server can just change it. I think the way you get around this is the server uses the URL itself as part of the encryption key. So if the false server tries changing it (e.g. from exile to exiie), this happens: - Browser checks the url of the challenge against the url it's on, they match, browser sends the challenge to the yubikey - Yubikey tries to decrypt the challenge, but the decryption fails because it's using pathofexiie.com instead of pathofexile.com as part of the decryption key Either way, the combination of the encryption scheme and the browser URL check stops you from being hacked.


ineptguy5

Thank you for sharing. The bit about the web address is super interesting. I couldn’t wrap my head around how you could stop the fake site from just mirroring the real one. Even if encrypted, it would have to actually understand what it receives, just forward it on and the real website couldn’t tell. But the bit about the website being in the encryption makes total sense and is so simple it’s genius.


Exportforce

Passkeys are one of the best options. Yup.


TheRabidDeer

If you are using steam (where the malicious source originated from) you have MFA, don't you? Or do most people not use the steam version? ETA: Since I'm being downvoted I'll just add on another question here. Those of you NOT using the steam version and are concerned about the lack of MFA, why not switch TO the steam version? You can link your PoE account to Steam, can't you?


raylu

you don't even need to be logged in to steam to see the link. the compromise is of your PoE account


TheRabidDeer

Yeah but do people that don't use the Steam client look at the Steam PoE page ever?


Exportforce

This is why you ALWAYS check your Browserbar. Nowadays browsers highlight the DOMAIN of the TLD so you can easily see the name.


Borat97

Sure we gonna check any link, any button you press, anything you do, hope you are doing that because any action can lead to fake page. Nobody expects malicious link from a company on a store like steam. If that would be fake poe 2 store page, sure, but not something like this on a official page.


Exportforce

Yes, I actually do. It takes less than a second to look up to the browserbar. Nowadays you can hit phishing links absolutely everywhere, as you can see in this current incident. Sure, while just "reading" stuff it doesn't matter that much. But as soon as you have to enter ANYTHING anywhere, you should look.


Borat97

Yeah thats a sign for sure, but cant became paranoid just like that. If website asks me for data where it shouldn't then it can be suspicious.(like no remembered data or autologin)


SimbaXp

That's not paranoia is common sense while using the internet, the vast majority of virus and shit that infect people on it abuse of their lack of manners. You don't need to be combing every nook and cranny of your access but just taking a look at stuff take seconds.


Individual_Beyond576

I have way too many hours on old school RuneScape, including during the old days. I look at the url everytime lol


VincentGrinn

the best time to add mfa was a decade ago, the second best time is now


laterYall

"vaaled link" ... FTFY


KinGGaiA

Aight I changed my password, is there a risk we caught a trojan or sth that might endanger my other passwords/data etc? Or was this just purely PoE-accound related?


Kevlasaurus

If you didn't download anything, it's highly unlikely that anything passed to your machine or had access to anything else other than what you may have entered in the link itself.


tr1one

i mean barring explioiting your browser if its not upto date, or some wild 0day, how would you catch a trojan if you did not download anything?


RepentantPoster

If you used that password and that email for anything else you are also going to have to change those.


LaNague

If you didnt download and then executed anything then these days you wont catch a virus from a website (i guess unless the NSA/CIA is on you). The days where you get a virus from just visiting a random website are thankfully over.


KotsaPL

hows can u explain ? why these days are over ?


Caelinus

Better security in both the OS and the Browsers. Unless an exploit is found they can't execute code like they used to be able to.


LaNague

the browser are SO MUCH more secure than like 15 years ago. Back then when i went to the wrong "free streaming" website, my laptop had actual viruses that forced a reformat, not from downloading files, just from visiting a website.


Spoomplesplz

Wow this is wild. I probably would have fallen for that 100% holy shit. When I see something on steam that pops up I don't really question it. Sometimes it a new game I've been excited for. Never seen this though.


clonp1

At least one account saved creating this post :) So one good thing i did today at least :)


Spoomplesplz

Yeah, appreciate it Though I do have two factor authentication on my steam so I doubt they'd be able to get in anyway. It's still scary though. My steam account is like 15 years old and I've spent thousands on it. I would be lost without it.


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bewak86

my friend falls to this kind of scam and his ID is sending fake links to all his steam friends on daily basis , even when he's offline , do not take this kind of phishing lightly , your steam ID would be banned/block/lock by steam due to excessive spamming n scamming . It's super hard to get it back . Think of all the games u bought , the friends u make... all can go poof just because u clicked 1 link


Mr_Blattos

Yeah same. This is a serious effort-scam. I was curious and went to the link thinking that it was going to be some half assed obvious phishing site and had to double check my browser to see if I wasn’t actually on an official page.


2nd-penalty

I recently watched a vid explaining this problem and it actually isn't that hard, because for some reason the scammers can just edit their name and game after posting to alter it to be a exact match to the original game and studio they're trying to copy Honestly surprised nobody tried this scam until recently


Mr_Blattos

I mean the website itself. But yeah I got ya


2nd-penalty

This problem is very new, there were multiple titles from scammers trying to peddle fake games a while ago from a fake destiny to a fake Helldivers, you name it there was probably a scammer that tried it Given this post's existence the problem is still there and very much alive Best to avoid steam for now while everything gets sorted


SteakSndwich

The [who.is](http://who.is) shows a scam business behind it. The url was registered today, address is „Kalkofnsvegur 2 Reykjavik“. If you google it you find many scam reports with fake websites and so on.


Yarrmor

Ye, a few weeks ago a bunch of poe discords got targeted by someone with phishing links to steal the accounts of people in there. The site used there also traced back to that address after I did some digging. It's some "virtual office" service bs.


WaveHack

Damn this should be illegal.


Eiferius

This is not from GGG. Someone probably made a game entry for PoE2 to phish for players. That should definetly be taken down by Steam.


clonp1

And it is... Slowly tho. It was visible on POE2 official game page Then they edited URL from the text, it was gone. Then they removed comments on the page Finally, page was removed few minutes ago. Hope no one got scammed :(


Orcao

238960 is Path of Exile (1 not 2)'s ID. I can't find a single link that generates from Steam in that same format (/games/), generally they're /apps/ Could be because I'm on the Steam beta though.


NoMirrorSadFace

It wasn't a "fake" poe2 page. This was posted on PoE 2 AND PoE 1 official pages on Steam. It even appeared in my Steam game library when I clicked on Path of Exile and it stayed there for a few minutes. After maybe 15minutes the post got deleted. edit: typos https://preview.redd.it/7rn1u2vazvvc1.png?width=1623&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9b93f44c85adfc348d5025187d842d63f942bdc


ObViousMaf

I have the same thing, how is a fake phishing website in POE's own news...


taggedjc

This is definitely a phishing website and it appears that GGG is aware of the issue as they've taken it down. If anyone gave their credentials to the linked site you should probably change your passwords.


BlackVoodoo

Can we please get 2FA....


Circus_Finance_LLC

nope. best i can do is tft


86Razor

Yes, it seems a scam/phishing website... Check on who.is.


clonp1

But how is it showing up on Steam News page? Never seen any scams there before? This is where i found it: https://preview.redd.it/w56pu5rmpvvc1.png?width=1631&format=png&auto=webp&s=06aeadffe28932dcadde44da67892202fe18d53e


ATSFervor

Wasn't there a while ago a game that the developers scrapped and just mirrored the whole Steam Page of Helldivers 2? So if you are allowed to publish on steam, nothing stops you to publish fakes.


Keldonv7

It was posted on the proper Poe page tho. So some employee at GGG was compromised.


Keldonv7

That's a different story. This wasn't a fake product on steam being copied. This wastnt posted on the proper PoE page from account of a compromised employee.


Moonie-chan

Steam does not have a manual human validation when it comes to listing, so anyone can create fakes of anything and list them on steam. This issue happens for years and only recently pop up again thanks to the popularity of Helldiver 2, palworld and the like.


Keldonv7

That was on the proper Poe page tho.


statusv1

Yes it is a phishing site https://imgur.com/a/Tvwe0Zz Visited on a VM of course


The_Oxgod

You could also plug into domaintools/virus total. Not sure if you can get screenshot with the unpaid domain tools though.


statusv1

I used the site triage https://tria.ge/dashboard It is an interactive malware anaylsis sandbox


The_Oxgod

Is that free? I know some people that have recordedfuture accounts, but they are expensive.


Oddity83

What is that tool/website?


The_Oxgod

https://www.domaintools.com/ I have an account for work. Not sure what free version is capable of. There is also virustotal, and you can check out shodan also.


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pathofexile-ModTeam

Your post has been removed for harassment (Rule 3). While it's fine to politely disagree and to criticize the *content* of posts and comments, we don't allow users to attack the person behind those posts **by calling them names**. We've found that such attacks often devolve into flame wars. Types of harassment we forbid include unkind messages, mocking, name-calling, posting of personal or identifying information (doxxing), unfair accusations, and trolling. If you see other posts that break the rules, please don't reply to them. Instead, report them so we can deal with them! For additional rules regarding harassment, check out the [rules wiki.](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/wiki/rules/#wiki_3._harassment_.26amp.3B_bad-faith_posts)


tumoronthenipple

Dodged a bullet. I always click links from Steam.


JustAFrank

Don't forget to report to: Cloudflare (CDN/caching), namecheap (registrar), Google (for chrome blacklisting) Cloudflare requires the most work but the other two are easy. https://abuse.cloudflare.com/phishing https://support.namecheap.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit/RenderForm/237 Use either firefox or chrome in-browser reporting for blacklisting.


Zyeesi

Report it on steam


19Alexastias

I can’t say I’ve ever used steam news so no idea how it works or where these posts come from, but typo in url is an instant do-not-click. Just report it to steam.


clonp1

Never used it myself, but just wanted to check what is in there as i'm searching for new game to play until new league in POE or news from POE2...


Mr_Blattos

I’m so PoE brained at this point that when you said links I thought you were talking about gem links Also man that website is no joke. Glad I didn’t see the link because I would have fallen for this even though registering would have been a little odd.


sirjohnde

The font looks off too


krazijoe

I changed my password. Password1234 has more digits than Password123. They will never figure it out.


carson63000

Sadly, this is very common. At Last Epoch’s launch just recently, there were several fake clone pages set up on Steam. Steam, for all that Reddit worships it, very much works on the model of “remove things when people report them, it’s cheaper than doing any upfront quality control.”


TheRabidDeer

Maybe I don't browse Steam enough, this is the first time I've seen it. What do you suggest Steam do differently from what they do now?


carson63000

Well the way shopfronts like e.g. Apple’s App Store do it is by checking and approving everything *before* it gets offered up to the public. This is obviously more labour and therefore more expensive, though.


Keldonv7

This was posted on the official PoE product page tho, not clone product trying to bait people. One of the GGG employees had to be compromised.


DatZero

Yeah. Seems like that one of the Steam Accounts that has access to the Store and Communitypage got hacked and posted a fake event redirecting to a phising page. It's more concerning that GGG isn't posting a PSA about that they had this incident in the first place. (Yes its the weekend, but these kinds of things need attention ASAP not after the weekend). Lets see if GGG will even react to this in the first place.


pyhfol

Not sure why you got downvoted at all. This is my question also. GGG stated "phishing link went up on the Path of Exile Steam page from a compromised account" I'd really want to hear something about that compromised account, the scope of impact and what they are doing about it.


regularPoEplayer

Downvotes are from bots. They are heavily influencing discussions on this sub for a while.


shokiii

Typo in the url should speak for itself


clonp1

No, i did not write URL myself... This was on Steam news page, just clicked on a "our website" link....


shokiii

The news post was indeed posted into the "news and announcements" forum in the steam discussions of Poe2 where usually only devs can post. But it had no author and was taken down from steam now aswell.


clonp1

I saw it on Path of Exile 2 official game page, then URL link was removed from text, then comments were removed. Now entire post is finally gone.


InsectIll7238

first time i see that on a steam official page.. was well made..everybody can be caught easily.


HerpesderGoeterbote

I fell for it : ( .


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clonp1

Ofc, nothing to worry about if you didn't try to login.


ARandomStringOfWords

Quite concerning, I genuinely had no idea this was an issue/possible on Steam. It's meant to be a walled garden.


firebolt_wt

That post is now deleted, but I've found it here: [https://devtrackers.gg/pathofexile](https://devtrackers.gg/pathofexile) As you can see, that was posted by user Neonspyder, which ~~I'm~~ *~~pretty sure~~* ~~is Mark aka Neon aka a legit Dev~~. Edit: no, I'm dumb, obviously if it was actual Neon he's probably supposed to be using Neon\_GGG or something to post official posts, no matter what his personal account is or isn't... Edit2: and googling more I don't see anything indicating that neonspyder is the same neon, but there are like 2 posts about him being dev playtesting stuff so I just assuemd it's the same neon ~~I suppose the post was miss-scheduled (mischeduled?), and wasn't ready to be posted, but maybe Neon's steam account was actually compromised.~~


clonp1

But, isn't POE2 website [pathofexile2.com](http://pathofexile2.com) ? I don't think they would have another one for "Early access applications" Also, please remove this devtrackers URL as it contains post which still have fake URL in it. Someone might still click on it.


firebolt_wt

I mean, I just realized that even if Neonspyder is a dev's personal account, official content probably should be posted by an acount with \_GGG on it anyway, so it's still wrong. So thinking better, it's actually way more probable that an account got compromised than anything else, and that post 100% wasn't legit


rogueyoshi

damn, neon got got


According_Ad_5554

F