"I'm attempting to contact DA staff and hope to hear back from them soon." reads on the journal.

That's fucked, I hope he DA people can address this ASAP.

Oh dang. Here's hoping dA gives enough of a fuck to actually do something about it. Good luck!

Hope dA actually does something about it- if you have 'points' etc. associated with your account then I'd raise hell (even if it's only like 30 cents or whatever). As soon as money or prints are involved they legally have to respond. Otherwise it's grounds for sue/court shit.

Keeping you in my thoughts!

Im so sorry :( ive had this happen in the past as well and its the jerkiest thing a person could do.

That happened to you too, huh? I was logged out of my account when I checked it this morning, so I tried to log in. None of my passwords worked, so I clicked "forgot my password" to start the password recovery process. Instead of the verification code email I was expecting to receive, I got a "your email address was recently changed" email instead. Not happy about this at all and wonder how many people this sort of thing has affected. :\

Ah. So then it's probably part of a larger attempt, I'm sure many more people have been affected. Fortunately I don't use the password I used on DA anywhere else so they shouldn't have my login to any other site, but I'm changing a few here and there just to be sure anyway.

It seems like it, but you're the only other person I've seen that's mentioned a hack so far. Like you, DA was the only account I can think of with a really old password I never thought to change. All I worry about is someone buying prints or points using a card I may or may not have saved to my account, and sending items to themselves. I hate not knowing if I really did save my card information. Probably going to call some card companies and put them on alert until this is sorted out. Sucks. :\

Just saying, but it seems the exact same happened to my friend  HuskyLuw too. Suddenly logged out, password didn't work, and she can't receive the e-mail either because it's an unknown e-mail address. So it's likely to have effected multiple people. I only know that my friend's computer died. So it atleast got shut down aswell. Though I don't know if this matters? How would one hack a computer that is fully turned off, you know? Unless the re-start caused any form of auto 'update', which was a hack? But just guessing. Honestly glad I am not effected. Still super upset for my friend though, she used sta.sh to store all her bought art... And with her computer dead it's all gone now... >.<

It's not gone and she has to get it back in her hands.

But she already contacted the staff, and they aren't going to help her. So she can not get her account back. No access to the account, no access to the sta.sh. So now all she can do is to contact the artists again and hope for them to still have the files. :S

she can get it back but other folks are going to have to help make a huge stink, and DA is obligated to help her. Not doing so would be bad for them.

The issue is, that she doesn't have the email address it was signed up with, and even with other proof of it being her account, if she can't name the email address it was signed up with DA apparently 'can not' do anything to return the account to her... This is what they said atleast. >.<

Weird question. Did you by any chance turn off your desktop computer last night, if you use one? A friend of mine said she lost power last night and woke up with a hacked account. I turned my PC off for the first time in months last night as well because we had bad weather and then my account was hacked. Just curious as that would be a weird coincidence....

Hey, just a tip from a cybersecurity nut - work on changing all of your passwords ASAP! Especially if you ever repeat passwords. There's no telling where they could have gotten your account password from, could've been in a past breach, bruteforcing if it was something simple, or even a spear phishing attack.

The best way to secure your accounts is by using a unique complex passwords for every single account (never repeat them) you have and turning on 2FA where possible. You can keep all of your passwords organized by using a password manager (1Password, KeePass, LastPass, etc). I actually wrote a blog post about this in the past.

Hope this helps! Feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions. Good luck with getting your account back, hopefully they pull through quickly!

Hey, thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately this is extra-painful for me because I already am using a password manager and have got unique and complex passwords for almost every site I'm on, except DeviantART. That one is an older password that I used to use everywhere (thankfully I don't copy passwords anymore) and just never really bothered to change so that I could easily log in from other devices. Lesson learned I guess, and I'm still changing some passwords here and there just to be sure.

Good for you! More people should use password managers.

I'm hoping this gets sorted out soon!

I believe the password manager may have been compromised I heard not too long ago about it happening

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40118699

"... or even a spear phishing attack."

What's that one all about?

Spear phishing just means a targeted phishing attack. When you hear "phishing" think fishing, I.E. someone malicious lays out bait and waits for someone else to fall for it. This can be something as simple as a a fake URL to a login page clone included in an email, to more sophisticated methods involving rogue access points or DNS spoofing.

I'm familiar with the term fishing/phishing, just hadn't heard the term spear phishing before. What's the difference to regular fishing attempts?

Spear Phishing is more targeted. In the fisherman analogy, it's using a spear instead of a net. You have one individual or organization you wish to exploit and not just randoms.

Mine has been like this as well. I only JUST found out about it.

Unfortunately, I don't think dA is really all that difficult to hack into if someone really wants to. I think this because years ago, when I was still with my abusive ex, said abusive ex hacked into my dA account (I have never told him any of my passwords for anything) and changed the email in it to hold my account hostage (to "punish" me for the grave sin of not talking to him for an evening because I was visiting a friend pfft). I don't know why anyone would hack into a dA account at this point though, dA seems rather irrelevant nowadays heh.

Hope you can get your account back either way, would be annoying if someone tried to impersonate you.

It may not even have been hacking. If you left yourself logged in on a computer, he could have gotten in that way. Most "hacks" committed by friends/siblings/relatives are done that way.

I knew someone would say this. xD It's my mistake really, I should have clarified right from the get-go: It was a long-distance relationship at the time, he had no physical access to any of my stuff, and even if it hadn't been long-distance, I only had a laptop at the time and had it with me at my friend's house.

Of course, he also hacked other things too, that he would tell me about/show me; he wasn't some second-rate script-kiddie. But dA was the easiest for him to get into, apparently.

Okay, that changes things quiet a bit. Sorry for making assumptions.

It's all good! Like I said, I rather expected it. It's a fair assumption, many people have misconceptions of what "hacking" actually is. Hell, my own mom thinks I can hack because one time she was locked out of the admin user account on her PC so I used a boot disc to delete the user password, lol.

They don't need to hack dA if they can just hack you.

...I'm not sure how to take this comment.

You just made me go to the site and change my password. One of the few sites that I'd forgotten about in my crusade to change everything to unique passwords. :X

You and me both. I installed a password manager a year or so ago and changed all of my passwords except DA. No specific reason, just never really bothered (I guess easier access on other devices etc). Lesson learned :x

Same thing with me. I've had KeePass for a few years or so now (in the process of trying out and possibly switching to EnPass). I have like 190+ passwords in the thing. There's just a few places that slipped under the radar and on occasion I'll remember something.

Also, bit of a tip here.... If you by some chance happen to use Skype and have it attached to a Microsoft account so you log in with an email address instead of a user name, be aware that you can log in with both the user name and the email address and they have completely separate passwords. And it doesn't matter if you have 2FA enabled on your Microsoft account, the username can still be logged into willy-nilly. It would behoove you in that case to change the password on that one to something ridiculous and impossible to crack.

Hey, do you want me to post on your DA profile warning people that your account got hacked?? :O
I'm really sorry this happened to you ;<

Ah, yes please! I hadn't even thought of that.

Ick. Bummer. Hope you can get it all worked out quickly and whoever did it doesn't get anything important.

That's shit, happened to me one in Newgrounds, thankfully they didn't delete everything I had, just one animation that now is long lost.

Tho they didn't change the source e-mail so I got it back quiet easily.

Sorry to hear that Cara. What a major pain in the ass. It doesn't look like they've actually done anything with your page yet, so that's good news. My last experience with the DA staff was several years ago, but they were pretty prompt, so hopefully they get this sorted out for you quickly. Best wishes.

I can also leave a comment on your page to let people know (IDK if the other person left their comment yet, but I don't see it right now. Maybe it got deleted?). Do you want me to link your journal here on FA in my comment?

Thanks Robbo, and yeah go ahead. I don't think whoever hacked into it meant to actually do anything with the account (I'm not the only one that's been compromised apparently, so it was part of a larger attack), at least not for now. I hope DA staff will resolve it before then.

Ok then! I posted a quick comment with links to both your journals here on FA. We'll see if it gets deleted or not. Best of luck for a quick fix from dA. :)

Thanks for that!

Would it be wise for anyone with a dA account to change their password then? I don't remember which password I use, but I don't know if my account's been compromised. I'm at work so I can't check.

Idk, this just has me worried.

I would advise it, yeah. Looks like I'm not the only one and it's not unthinkable that other accounts will follow. I was logged out this morning so I should probably have known better than to try and log in again, but I did anyway and that's when I lost control of the account.

owch. good luck! :0

Bet that account thief feels like a damn good artist fttb. XD

best of luck getting things sorted out~

Thats just terrible, so sorry to hear that.

Shit, I'm sorry Cara :/

good luck, hope you can get it back

Wouldn't be surprised if this has something to do with the CloudFlare breach. Especially since you mentioned it being an old password.

A lot of people didn't understand that that would affect almost every website. At that time, you needed to change all of your passwords.

https://www.extremetech.com/interne.....ds-immediately

Anyway, hope things work out for you.

O that sounds like a big problem :( I hope you get your account back! I wonder if you show your high rez art would be proof enough for DA staff to show your the actual owner? Well I'm guessing you already thought of that. I wouldn't know what else I would do to try get a hacked account back :/

that is just Junk I'm sorry that happened and I hope they fix it soon.

I myself don't visit there much since they're not too nice to artists of various types and affiliations. However, regardless of that, I do hope you're able to get it resolved. Whomever got in may also steal more then an e-mail. So just be on the lookout.

Best wishes!

I hope this guide can help you: https://strongpass.us

The DA admins should be able to restore your account to you.

Have you had someone go on there and leave messages on the profile to let everyone there know?

I have yes, unfortunately (I suppose haha) it was my birthday today so people went on my front page to congratulate me and the messages of my account being hacked got pushed way back.

I have received a response by DA's support team though, so I'm one step closer to recovering my account I suppose. I just need to verify my identity to them somehow.

Maybe linking this Journal article will work for that...