MMO Game Risks Security of Players
Artifact Entertainment developed Horizons: Empire of Istaria and eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankrupcy.
In an extremely controversial deal, Artifact Entertainment's assets (including Horizons: Empire of Istaria) were sold to Tulga Games. Tulga Games was then privately funded.
When the individual privatley funding the project decided that it was time to pull out he sold Horizons: Empire of Istaria to EI Interactive (a week ago).
EI Interactive changed the billing system for Horizons on August 1st.
Here's where the blunder of epic proportions comes in...
Their new billing system was a site without an SSL certificate. On top of that it's running on an Apache server which is known to have a number of remote control vulnerabilities. It gets worse... When a client updated their billing information it was saved to a TEXT FILE in a PUBLIC DIRECTORY! If you read the source code of the form on the HTML page you knew exactly where the text file was being saved. When you opened up the directory you got a listing of ALL the TEXT files containing account information, personal addresses, and billing information - all unencrypted.
EI took the billing site down, but within hours put it back up without applying any new security! They did, however, add a new payment option: send your credit card information BY MAIL! Lastly, EI has STILL failed to issue a statement (any statement) regarding the billing blunder.
Intstead, this error message has been created:
Horizons is in the process of a billing systems update,
therefore we are not able activate new accounts at this time.
We will again be accepting new accounts very soon,
please check back.
If you created a Free Trial account between 8:00 pm ET, Monday, July 31, 2006
and 8:00 pm ET, Tuesday, August 1, 2006, there was a system error
which prevented your account from being created properly,
if you used PayPal to subscribe, your account will be cancelled, if you used
a direct credit card payment, it will not be processed.
YOU WILL NEED TO CREATE A NEW FREE TRIAL ACCOUNT
ONCE THE SYSTEM HAS BEEN REACTIVATED.
In an extremely controversial deal, Artifact Entertainment's assets (including Horizons: Empire of Istaria) were sold to Tulga Games. Tulga Games was then privately funded.
When the individual privatley funding the project decided that it was time to pull out he sold Horizons: Empire of Istaria to EI Interactive (a week ago).
EI Interactive changed the billing system for Horizons on August 1st.
Here's where the blunder of epic proportions comes in...
Their new billing system was a site without an SSL certificate. On top of that it's running on an Apache server which is known to have a number of remote control vulnerabilities. It gets worse... When a client updated their billing information it was saved to a TEXT FILE in a PUBLIC DIRECTORY! If you read the source code of the form on the HTML page you knew exactly where the text file was being saved. When you opened up the directory you got a listing of ALL the TEXT files containing account information, personal addresses, and billing information - all unencrypted.
EI took the billing site down, but within hours put it back up without applying any new security! They did, however, add a new payment option: send your credit card information BY MAIL! Lastly, EI has STILL failed to issue a statement (any statement) regarding the billing blunder.
Intstead, this error message has been created:
Horizons is in the process of a billing systems update,
therefore we are not able activate new accounts at this time.
We will again be accepting new accounts very soon,
please check back.
If you created a Free Trial account between 8:00 pm ET, Monday, July 31, 2006
and 8:00 pm ET, Tuesday, August 1, 2006, there was a system error
which prevented your account from being created properly,
if you used PayPal to subscribe, your account will be cancelled, if you used
a direct credit card payment, it will not be processed.
YOU WILL NEED TO CREATE A NEW FREE TRIAL ACCOUNT
ONCE THE SYSTEM HAS BEEN REACTIVATED.
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