I did get my account hacked about 6 months ago, got it fixed and bought an authenticator.
A couple days ago though, some how, some hopeless GREEDY douche got a hold of my Credit Card # (no I didn't have any keyloggers, nor have I fallen prey to a phishing site, i don't even buy stuff of the internet, and I don't really browse the internet, I really just play my game, and check my email without clicking on any links in those emails, and visit this site.) and they charged up to around 800$ of random shit from blizzard. You think getting your account hacked is bad...just wait till this happens to you! It really makes me just want to quit the whole MMO subscription scene all together.
I'm still in the process of trying to get a hold of blizzard to try and get this sorted out, so far i've canceled my card, and contacted the fraud department at my bank. The blizzard phonelines are ALWAYS full so it's sooooo damn hard to get through! it's ridiculous! I would rather have my wow account hacked than my bank account!! I Hate greedy people with a passion!!!!!!!!
Thats sound very fishy. Hackers, well the type of hackers talked about in this thread dont really do that becouse its risky and for the most part quite pointless, becouse as you have said you blocked your card quickly, not to mention this in comparison to hacking a game account is a serious crime. Dont you have a younger family member that could have simply orderd the stuff? My friend had a similar situation where he was going crazy over his credit card bill, blocking his card and reporting his case to the authorities. Later it turned out it was his little brother who had no idea (as he claimed) how credit cards worked.
for the rest ... lol ... anyhow, not gonna waste my breath further. Something did happen that they got your account but meh.. playing for 15 years mmorgps , never ever once I got compromised ( being an IT specialist helps I guess )
Anyhow hope you get all your stuff back , blizz improved rather a lot on that matter so relax get a drink ^^
To be honest, being an IT specialist won't help you one jot. Not when the hacking could possibly be coming from the back end.
I've been playing this game for almost 6 years now and been 'hacked' once 6 months ago.
It's a very similar tale to the OP and I can say categorically with 100% certainty that my pc was clean and secure (still is).
I downloaded the free authenticator for my iPhone and have not had any repeat 'hackings' since. Can't recommend it highly enough for peace of mind.
I mean how far do people have to go to play an online game? I was doing all of the following and more:
- My WoW login email and password are unique to WoW - I have separate emails for each game that I play.
- I never use the same email and password for forums and fan websites that I do for game log-ins.
- When accessing my WoW account through the website I always go manually through my own link - I never click links in emails for things such as this as an added safe guard against phishing.
- My AV was fully up to date and did daily scans (whilst annoying you can't conveniently plan to get a trojan just before your weekly scan).
- I'm behind both hardware and software firewalls
- Windows is always fully up to date.
- My home PC that I use to game on and make payments is not used for anything else but that. I have a separate pc for browsing the web, etc. and it's not like I visit dubious sites anyway - I'm 30+ not 16.
- I don't download torrents or use any kind or pirated or cracked software.
- My account info has never been shared.
- I have never been phished.
All the above effectively rules out any kind of virus or trojan infection. However, no normal AV, no matter how well thought of, can find a root kit virus.
The only way to find a root kit is to notice the regular and suspicious activity and run programs such as GMER and Malware Bytes and know what you are looking for. The results from the GMER scans will still often not tell you directly that you have a root kit but you can usually read between the lines and act on the side of caution. The only safe way to remove any virus, trojan or root kit is to do a full reformat.
I know 100% for certain that I don't not have any kind 'infection'. This leaves very few options for how they got access to my account and personally I don't think Blizzard or their system is 101% infallible, or any other company for that matter.
_________________________________________ You can walk the walk but can you talk the talk?
This comes up far too often. Someone got hacked, writes an article about it, claims it's Blizzard hacking their users accounts. *yawwwwwn*
Seriously: this is a joke. Why would a company risk their future and good reputation, to make some more money? I mean, if the company would have financial problems: maybe. But Blizzard and financial problems? Huh?
Not to mention that the number of people who got hacked is probably lower than it seems. Because those who got hacked cry about it on the boards, and those who didn't get hacked simply play happily without beeing noticed. I know dozens of people having played WoW for years, and only one of them got hacked after having bought money on gold vendor sites.
I'm no Blizzard fan, but I'm no fan of stupidity either. And claiming that Blizzard screws up their useres accounts is plain stupid. Why do you guys think that people constantly try cheap tricks, like putting up videos on YouTube claiming "watch this WoW hack me doing double damage! Want the same? Go to this site and download the hack!", or "Want a free game card? Send me your unused gamecard code, and I send you two back!", or "Hi, this is Blizzard. You won a mount. Go to this site, and login with your account data to claim the mount!".
Why are these cheap tricks flooding the internet and the game? Because people fall for them! Yes, many people are that dumb! And if you ask me what's more likely: a user not capable of protecting his account, or a company without financial problems risking it's name by hacking screwing up their users accounts... I don't believe that anyone seriously believes that.
So stop acting like a child. You did something wrong, you got hacked. You can learn from that, or blame it on someone else.
I got my WoW account since the games launch. I have no authenticator, and I was never hacked. Oh noes, I'm sure I'm the next victim of Blizzards grand evil schemes! T_T
I did get my account hacked about 6 months ago, got it fixed and bought an authenticator.
A couple days ago though, some how, some hopeless GREEDY douche got a hold of my Credit Card # (no I didn't have any keyloggers, nor have I fallen prey to a phishing site, i don't even buy stuff of the internet, and I don't really browse the internet, I really just play my game, and check my email without clicking on any links in those emails, and visit this site.) and they charged up to around 800$ of random shit from blizzard. You think getting your account hacked is bad...just wait till this happens to you! It really makes me just want to quit the whole MMO subscription scene all together.
I'm still in the process of trying to get a hold of blizzard to try and get this sorted out, so far i've canceled my card, and contacted the fraud department at my bank. The blizzard phonelines are ALWAYS full so it's sooooo damn hard to get through! it's ridiculous! I would rather have my wow account hacked than my bank account!! I Hate greedy people with a passion!!!!!!!!
Thats sound very fishy. Hackers, well the type of hackers talked about in this thread dont really do that becouse its risky and for the most part quite pointless, becouse as you have said you blocked your card quickly, not to mention this in comparison to hacking a game account is a serious crime. Dont you have a younger family member that could have simply orderd the stuff? My friend had a similar situation where he was going crazy over his credit card bill, blocking his card and reporting his case to the authorities. Later it turned out it was his little brother who had no idea (as he claimed) how credit cards worked.
No, I don't have anyone that lives with me that plays WoW, They didn't even charge it to my wow account, I have no idea what account/s they charged it to. I'm the youngest in the family, and no one has access to my bank account. I've ran TONS of malware/keylogger/antivirus programs since this has happened and nothing has shown up. I'm really kinda baffled as to how it happened if I do indeed have no keyloggers. and like I said before, I don't enter websites if I know nothing about the site, I'm pretty paranoid when it comes to those things, especially now that this has happened.
Sorry but all I'm gonna say to this is QQ, shit happens, etc etc. Seriously, why didn't you get the auhenticator?! they're pretty cheap! Hell for the phone app its even cheaper than the dongle! Also, WoW accounts get hacked all the time and now days Blizzard has an easy way to combat it and you can just call them up, they are quite understanding and will be able to retrieve your account and recover your characters. So you're some big shot on MMORPG.com who got hacked, so what, alot of people do dude, get over it, jeez. This isn't news, this is someone crying over nothing. And you can accuse me of flaming or trolling all ya want, I just don't care for this type of crap on websites I like to go on for real news not this shit, and I think I made some good valid points to it anyway, its not like I'm calling him a retard without reason.
I am not a pro programmer nor know hackers capacity but :
Cant WoW client check machine public IP?
Cant Blizzard limit IP range that is allowed to connect on your account?
The dial in authenticator does something similar, if you are logging in the game from a IP or location you usually don't use, then they ask you to call a number and authenticate it. The dial-in thing is 100% free, just need a regular phone.
ok I think I was a little too hastey to reply there and since I can't edit I'll post a further comment, I notice you did all you could to recover, thats great, but crying about it on here imo is just pathetic, sorry, but, yeah, it is. I mean who do you think you are really? join the club dude, when it comes to actually playing an MMO ya just like us, a gamer in the same boat and shit can happen. As for why they hacked your account rather than creating a free trial? well the restrictions of chat is the main reason, blame Blizzard for that one. I know Blizzard did this to avoid the chat spam but this just encourages those gold sellers to hack us instead, nice move, not. However, it was smart of Blizzard to temp suspend your account, and that again is easy to recover by you. I'll say this one last time, this happens to all of us dude, you managed to sort it out, get over it and secure your account better, thats all I'm gonna say to this.
Mine got hacked as well and i never gave my info out, bought gold or PL's. Dont know how they did it. This is the 2nd account i lost to hackers. I told Blizzard to go shove it and im never playing a blizzard game again. IMO, Blizzard sells inactive accounts to the highest chinese bidder to make you buy their authenicators.
Interesting theory.
Which do you think blizzard wants more. Your $15 a month for many months
-OR-
You to buy an authenticator that costs anywhere from $6 to FREE.
Both!
And this theory is really possible. It would be even more profitable to the company if they got a deal or a percentage of the money that an illegal player (gold seller or simillar) would do with the inactive account in his hands.
I'm not saying they are doing it. But who can control the company for doing it? Who will stop the most rich online gaming company in the world from doing something like that?
I'm surprised that this is a featured post on this site, considering it was just a couple weeks ago they had an article called "Hacked!" which basically covered the same subject.
My Warhammer account is no longer mine because I never did bother to try to get it back, since I have no intention of playing.
My Aion account IS back in my hands after I switched to a password that I don't use anywhere else.
My WoW account was hacked and, like Aion, I use a unique password that's only used for WoW. (I also use the mobile authenticator).
Gold selling is an industry and these are professionals.
Make sure your password is only used for your particular game, and it's also helpful to use a combination of numbers/letters in it to throw off any automated attempt to access your account. You'd be amazed at how many people use P@ssword as their password.
The authenticator is free if you download it as an app on pretty much any smart phone.
I had a problem once when I had to do a factory reset on my phone which breaks the authenticator. Once the phone was reset and I downloaded a new authenticator and had to get a hold of blizz customer service. It wasn't during the hours the call centers were open so I just e-mailed them so that as soon as customer service was available I could get this taken care of.
I got an e-mail the next day (monday) asking some pretty basic stuff and the guy was able to remove the authenticator that was on my account so that I could put the new serial number on. Unfortunately I couldn't do it right away, I had to wait a day. During that unprotected day my account was hacked.
By the time I logged back in after reseting my password and adding the new authenticator serial number all my characters were naked. I opened an in game ticket that I was hacked. My account was suspended pending an investigation and soon after that all my gear was restored.
Since this happened I ALWAYS go onto my wow account and remove the authenticator code if I have to delete my authenticator from my phone.
I was hoping to find a decent discussion about anti-hacking strategies and advise to prevent account compromises, but instead I find a lot of gold sellers telling you there isn't anything you can do about it. If only we could downrate useless comments.
1. Blizzard gets hacked on a regular basis. It would destroy their bottom line if the general public, nevermind the playerbase, found out how often their systems are compromised. As a huge multi-billion dollar company, they're an even bigger target than the Pentagon was in the 80's. It happens, your passwords are stolen, deal with it. It isn't always keyloggers.
2. Keyloggers universally rely on a small set of behaviors to determine if you are typing a password. These behaviors are called hueristics. Anti-virus software checks for such things, regardless of any other stealth or adaptive behaviors. It is extremely hard for keyloggers to do their job if you're using a decent (read: not free) anti-virus software program or suite. Extremely hard, but not impossible.
3. Gold Selling, Identity Theft, and Corporate Espionage are all BIG business. Easily, they are also multi-billion dollar industries that rely on people being stupid, being naive, or being in the wrong place at the right time. They spend a huge amount of money on stealing money from honest people, and many times, it isn't the fault of the person who was robbed. A lot of effort goes into screwing other people. Someone will get hurt. If it's you, sorry.
for the rest ... lol ... anyhow, not gonna waste my breath further. Something did happen that they got your account but meh.. playing for 15 years mmorgps , never ever once I got compromised ( being an IT specialist helps I guess )
Anyhow hope you get all your stuff back , blizz improved rather a lot on that matter so relax get a drink ^^
Yeah, I'm an IT specialist as well and super duper paranoid on the internet, take all precautions, know what not to click, what not to visit, delete any e-mails from Blizzard because they never are from Blizzard, constantly scan my systems for intrusions, malware, worms, viruses etc. Oh, and I used to be one of the "Huh, if your account was hacked then obviously at some point you gave your information without realizing it. You suck at the internet." type people like you.
But then one day, after almost 6 years of an inactive WoW account I bought Burning Crusades. After re-activating my account I successfully logged in and I tried it out for a couple months then cancelled my account after changing my password to something really secure just to be safe. A few months later I decide to get the Cataclysm Pre-Order and load up WoW just to check things out before it opened. Hmm.. account suspended, banned, hacked. Blizzard employee states to me, "Oh wow yeah, they really did a number on your account. This will take a while for us to try and repair your characters." Iiiiiiiiiiinteresting...
I've had countless accounts in countless MMORPGs and don't use the same password or anything. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. Either there are some evil mastermind AIs out there slowly taking over the internet, specifically sniffing out data transfer between WoW and the world to find accounts that have recently closed and then launching some nefarious password hacking routines that don't flag Blizzard that attempts are being made on inactive accounts or.....
Oh, and did I mention that before I re-activated my inactive for 6 years account to try out Burning Crusades that I NEVER got WoW/Blizzard spam e-mails? The day after I cancelled my account again I started getting probably 20-30 a day. Coincidence upon coincidence.
So I appologize to any person I may have laughed and pointed at in the past thinking they couldn't spot a phishing e-mail to save their life.
its pretty amusing that ppl still get hacked and blaming blizz for there own mistakes
The world isn't simple, unfortunately. It really isn't.
If "ppl" closed their account a few years ago in proper state, they return now and find their account hacked, while they never got any mail from "blizz" that their account was reenabled and/or modified, they:
* Didn't have any way to attach an authenticator to their account - those things didn't exist then
* Should have been informed by Blizzard anything happened to their account (even when the account holder was stupid enough to let someone obtain his account name and password)
So:
* These people cannot be blamed for anything
* Blizzard is to be blamed for not informing account holders about changes to their account
Mine got hacked as well and i never gave my info out, bought gold or PL's. Dont know how they did it. This is the 2nd account i lost to hackers. I told Blizzard to go shove it and im never playing a blizzard game again. IMO, Blizzard sells inactive accounts to the highest chinese bidder to make you buy their authenicators.
a lot of businesses do that these days, so i dont discard that possibility. Since the account is inactive, they arent getting money out of it, so....... *(here goes your opinion)*
... and yet he still plays WoW even after the account is hacked because of "Blizzard's fault"(he never said he would stop lol). It looks like Blizzard dropped the F bomb in his face and he just nods in the end.
Going to add to the long list of hacked accounts. THERE IS SOMETHING FISHY GOING ON. I had 2 accounts on the same email. BOTH accounts where coming up for renewal. I decided not to renew and just let it end. Couple days later installed a bigger hard drive. After about 4 months of not playing decide to reinstall WOW and resubscribe. Check account info paymanet history and everything was good. Turns out somehow one of my CANCELED ACCOUNTS was being used to farm. There was even mention of 2ND party software being used under this one account. Go back check my account history THIS ACCOUNT WAS NEVER EVEN REACTIVED UNTIL I DID SO THE DAY I TRYED TO LOG IN. Now how the hell is my account being used when the history clearing states it has not been REactived in months till now, on a fresh new HD. I have never bought gold never went to any dumbass addon site, hell i dont even have a Facebook page. 2 things i did with the computer, paid bills and played wow, thats it. Theres about 5 ppl in the world that i gave my email address to MMORPG , 3 are direct family and WOW. ??
I'm sorry but I can't read the whole thread. I read a quarter of it and no one asked this question. So if somebody did in the last 3/4, sorry I missed it.
WHY DID YOUR FRIEND JOSH TELL YOU YOUR ACCOUNT WAS HACKED?
Sounds like you let him use your account and even if you didn't do anything to compromise it, apparently he did.
Bliz should have created a Cata + Auth package for $45 sinice therre was the digi dl option as well. Help people protect themselves from them selves. I imagine all the "Oh noez I've been haxxored!" threads and article would go by the wayside if every account had an authenticator attached.
if you have an ipod touch or iphone the authenticators are free, just a thought.
i have one on my ipod that i use. i actually got one before i even resubbed was tired of getting paranoid about the phishing emails. weither i play a game anymore or not i don't want my efforts to be used for some scumbag gold seller to ruin.
I'm sorry but I can't read the whole thread. I read a quarter of it and no one asked this question. So if somebody did in the last 3/4, sorry I missed it.
WHY DID YOUR FRIEND JOSH TELL YOU YOUR ACCOUNT WAS HACKED?
Sounds like you let him use your account and even if you didn't do anything to compromise it, apparently he did.
Well...i'm guessing that Josh saw that he logged in via his friends list and tried to chat and the person using his account was clearly not him....
Comments
Thats sound very fishy. Hackers, well the type of hackers talked about in this thread dont really do that becouse its risky and for the most part quite pointless, becouse as you have said you blocked your card quickly, not to mention this in comparison to hacking a game account is a serious crime. Dont you have a younger family member that could have simply orderd the stuff? My friend had a similar situation where he was going crazy over his credit card bill, blocking his card and reporting his case to the authorities. Later it turned out it was his little brother who had no idea (as he claimed) how credit cards worked.
I am not a pro programmer nor know hackers capacity but :
Cant WoW client check machine public IP?
Cant Blizzard limit IP range that is allowed to connect on your account?
To be honest, being an IT specialist won't help you one jot. Not when the hacking could possibly be coming from the back end.
I've been playing this game for almost 6 years now and been 'hacked' once 6 months ago.
It's a very similar tale to the OP and I can say categorically with 100% certainty that my pc was clean and secure (still is).
I downloaded the free authenticator for my iPhone and have not had any repeat 'hackings' since. Can't recommend it highly enough for peace of mind.
I mean how far do people have to go to play an online game? I was doing all of the following and more:
- My WoW login email and password are unique to WoW - I have separate emails for each game that I play.
- I never use the same email and password for forums and fan websites that I do for game log-ins.
- When accessing my WoW account through the website I always go manually through my own link - I never click links in emails for things such as this as an added safe guard against phishing.
- My AV was fully up to date and did daily scans (whilst annoying you can't conveniently plan to get a trojan just before your weekly scan).
- I'm behind both hardware and software firewalls
- Windows is always fully up to date.
- My home PC that I use to game on and make payments is not used for anything else but that. I have a separate pc for browsing the web, etc. and it's not like I visit dubious sites anyway - I'm 30+ not 16.
- I don't download torrents or use any kind or pirated or cracked software.
- My account info has never been shared.
- I have never been phished.
All the above effectively rules out any kind of virus or trojan infection. However, no normal AV, no matter how well thought of, can find a root kit virus.
The only way to find a root kit is to notice the regular and suspicious activity and run programs such as GMER and Malware Bytes and know what you are looking for. The results from the GMER scans will still often not tell you directly that you have a root kit but you can usually read between the lines and act on the side of caution. The only safe way to remove any virus, trojan or root kit is to do a full reformat.
I know 100% for certain that I don't not have any kind 'infection'. This leaves very few options for how they got access to my account and personally I don't think Blizzard or their system is 101% infallible, or any other company for that matter.
_________________________________________
You can walk the walk but can you talk the talk?
This comes up far too often. Someone got hacked, writes an article about it, claims it's Blizzard hacking their users accounts. *yawwwwwn*
Seriously: this is a joke. Why would a company risk their future and good reputation, to make some more money? I mean, if the company would have financial problems: maybe. But Blizzard and financial problems? Huh?
Not to mention that the number of people who got hacked is probably lower than it seems. Because those who got hacked cry about it on the boards, and those who didn't get hacked simply play happily without beeing noticed. I know dozens of people having played WoW for years, and only one of them got hacked after having bought money on gold vendor sites.
I'm no Blizzard fan, but I'm no fan of stupidity either. And claiming that Blizzard screws up their useres accounts is plain stupid. Why do you guys think that people constantly try cheap tricks, like putting up videos on YouTube claiming "watch this WoW hack me doing double damage! Want the same? Go to this site and download the hack!", or "Want a free game card? Send me your unused gamecard code, and I send you two back!", or "Hi, this is Blizzard. You won a mount. Go to this site, and login with your account data to claim the mount!".
Why are these cheap tricks flooding the internet and the game? Because people fall for them! Yes, many people are that dumb! And if you ask me what's more likely: a user not capable of protecting his account, or a company without financial problems risking it's name by hacking screwing up their users accounts... I don't believe that anyone seriously believes that.
So stop acting like a child. You did something wrong, you got hacked. You can learn from that, or blame it on someone else.
I got my WoW account since the games launch. I have no authenticator, and I was never hacked. Oh noes, I'm sure I'm the next victim of Blizzards grand evil schemes! T_T
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
No, I don't have anyone that lives with me that plays WoW, They didn't even charge it to my wow account, I have no idea what account/s they charged it to. I'm the youngest in the family, and no one has access to my bank account. I've ran TONS of malware/keylogger/antivirus programs since this has happened and nothing has shown up. I'm really kinda baffled as to how it happened if I do indeed have no keyloggers. and like I said before, I don't enter websites if I know nothing about the site, I'm pretty paranoid when it comes to those things, especially now that this has happened.
Sorry but all I'm gonna say to this is QQ, shit happens, etc etc. Seriously, why didn't you get the auhenticator?! they're pretty cheap! Hell for the phone app its even cheaper than the dongle! Also, WoW accounts get hacked all the time and now days Blizzard has an easy way to combat it and you can just call them up, they are quite understanding and will be able to retrieve your account and recover your characters. So you're some big shot on MMORPG.com who got hacked, so what, alot of people do dude, get over it, jeez. This isn't news, this is someone crying over nothing. And you can accuse me of flaming or trolling all ya want, I just don't care for this type of crap on websites I like to go on for real news not this shit, and I think I made some good valid points to it anyway, its not like I'm calling him a retard without reason.
The dial in authenticator does something similar, if you are logging in the game from a IP or location you usually don't use, then they ask you to call a number and authenticate it. The dial-in thing is 100% free, just need a regular phone.
-I want a Platformer MMO
ok I think I was a little too hastey to reply there and since I can't edit I'll post a further comment, I notice you did all you could to recover, thats great, but crying about it on here imo is just pathetic, sorry, but, yeah, it is. I mean who do you think you are really? join the club dude, when it comes to actually playing an MMO ya just like us, a gamer in the same boat and shit can happen. As for why they hacked your account rather than creating a free trial? well the restrictions of chat is the main reason, blame Blizzard for that one. I know Blizzard did this to avoid the chat spam but this just encourages those gold sellers to hack us instead, nice move, not. However, it was smart of Blizzard to temp suspend your account, and that again is easy to recover by you. I'll say this one last time, this happens to all of us dude, you managed to sort it out, get over it and secure your account better, thats all I'm gonna say to this.
Both!
And this theory is really possible. It would be even more profitable to the company if they got a deal or a percentage of the money that an illegal player (gold seller or simillar) would do with the inactive account in his hands.
I'm not saying they are doing it. But who can control the company for doing it? Who will stop the most rich online gaming company in the world from doing something like that?
This may help secure it a bit but not everyone who is a hacker or a gold seller lives in Korea fyi
I'm surprised that this is a featured post on this site, considering it was just a couple weeks ago they had an article called "Hacked!" which basically covered the same subject.
My Warhammer account is no longer mine because I never did bother to try to get it back, since I have no intention of playing.
My Aion account IS back in my hands after I switched to a password that I don't use anywhere else.
My WoW account was hacked and, like Aion, I use a unique password that's only used for WoW. (I also use the mobile authenticator).
Gold selling is an industry and these are professionals.
Make sure your password is only used for your particular game, and it's also helpful to use a combination of numbers/letters in it to throw off any automated attempt to access your account. You'd be amazed at how many people use P@ssword as their password.
The authenticator is free if you download it as an app on pretty much any smart phone.
I had a problem once when I had to do a factory reset on my phone which breaks the authenticator. Once the phone was reset and I downloaded a new authenticator and had to get a hold of blizz customer service. It wasn't during the hours the call centers were open so I just e-mailed them so that as soon as customer service was available I could get this taken care of.
I got an e-mail the next day (monday) asking some pretty basic stuff and the guy was able to remove the authenticator that was on my account so that I could put the new serial number on. Unfortunately I couldn't do it right away, I had to wait a day. During that unprotected day my account was hacked.
By the time I logged back in after reseting my password and adding the new authenticator serial number all my characters were naked. I opened an in game ticket that I was hacked. My account was suspended pending an investigation and soon after that all my gear was restored.
Since this happened I ALWAYS go onto my wow account and remove the authenticator code if I have to delete my authenticator from my phone.
DIE HARD IS A CHRISTMAS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YIPPIE KI YAY !
and happy what ever day to who ever on when ever
wow compromised by hackers FORGET FIGHTING HORDE OR ALLIANCE FIGHT THE HACKERS
Danny Boy XXXXXX
I was hoping to find a decent discussion about anti-hacking strategies and advise to prevent account compromises, but instead I find a lot of gold sellers telling you there isn't anything you can do about it. If only we could downrate useless comments.
1. Blizzard gets hacked on a regular basis. It would destroy their bottom line if the general public, nevermind the playerbase, found out how often their systems are compromised. As a huge multi-billion dollar company, they're an even bigger target than the Pentagon was in the 80's. It happens, your passwords are stolen, deal with it. It isn't always keyloggers.
2. Keyloggers universally rely on a small set of behaviors to determine if you are typing a password. These behaviors are called hueristics. Anti-virus software checks for such things, regardless of any other stealth or adaptive behaviors. It is extremely hard for keyloggers to do their job if you're using a decent (read: not free) anti-virus software program or suite. Extremely hard, but not impossible.
3. Gold Selling, Identity Theft, and Corporate Espionage are all BIG business. Easily, they are also multi-billion dollar industries that rely on people being stupid, being naive, or being in the wrong place at the right time. They spend a huge amount of money on stealing money from honest people, and many times, it isn't the fault of the person who was robbed. A lot of effort goes into screwing other people. Someone will get hurt. If it's you, sorry.
Yeah, I'm an IT specialist as well and super duper paranoid on the internet, take all precautions, know what not to click, what not to visit, delete any e-mails from Blizzard because they never are from Blizzard, constantly scan my systems for intrusions, malware, worms, viruses etc. Oh, and I used to be one of the "Huh, if your account was hacked then obviously at some point you gave your information without realizing it. You suck at the internet." type people like you.
But then one day, after almost 6 years of an inactive WoW account I bought Burning Crusades. After re-activating my account I successfully logged in and I tried it out for a couple months then cancelled my account after changing my password to something really secure just to be safe. A few months later I decide to get the Cataclysm Pre-Order and load up WoW just to check things out before it opened. Hmm.. account suspended, banned, hacked. Blizzard employee states to me, "Oh wow yeah, they really did a number on your account. This will take a while for us to try and repair your characters." Iiiiiiiiiiinteresting...
I've had countless accounts in countless MMORPGs and don't use the same password or anything. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. Either there are some evil mastermind AIs out there slowly taking over the internet, specifically sniffing out data transfer between WoW and the world to find accounts that have recently closed and then launching some nefarious password hacking routines that don't flag Blizzard that attempts are being made on inactive accounts or.....
Oh, and did I mention that before I re-activated my inactive for 6 years account to try out Burning Crusades that I NEVER got WoW/Blizzard spam e-mails? The day after I cancelled my account again I started getting probably 20-30 a day. Coincidence upon coincidence.
So I appologize to any person I may have laughed and pointed at in the past thinking they couldn't spot a phishing e-mail to save their life.
Its just stupid that ppl did not secure there account with a authenticator you get them even free for loads of phones now
its pretty amusing that ppl still get hacked and blaming blizz for there own mistakes
The world isn't simple, unfortunately. It really isn't.
If "ppl" closed their account a few years ago in proper state, they return now and find their account hacked, while they never got any mail from "blizz" that their account was reenabled and/or modified, they:
* Didn't have any way to attach an authenticator to their account - those things didn't exist then
* Should have been informed by Blizzard anything happened to their account (even when the account holder was stupid enough to let someone obtain his account name and password)
So:
* These people cannot be blamed for anything
* Blizzard is to be blamed for not informing account holders about changes to their account
[self-moderated]
a lot of businesses do that these days, so i dont discard that possibility. Since the account is inactive, they arent getting money out of it, so....... *(here goes your opinion)*
... and yet he still plays WoW even after the account is hacked because of "Blizzard's fault"(he never said he would stop lol). It looks like Blizzard dropped the F bomb in his face and he just nods in the end.
Good thing I quit the game early enough.
Going to add to the long list of hacked accounts. THERE IS SOMETHING FISHY GOING ON. I had 2 accounts on the same email. BOTH accounts where coming up for renewal. I decided not to renew and just let it end. Couple days later installed a bigger hard drive. After about 4 months of not playing decide to reinstall WOW and resubscribe. Check account info paymanet history and everything was good. Turns out somehow one of my CANCELED ACCOUNTS was being used to farm. There was even mention of 2ND party software being used under this one account. Go back check my account history THIS ACCOUNT WAS NEVER EVEN REACTIVED UNTIL I DID SO THE DAY I TRYED TO LOG IN. Now how the hell is my account being used when the history clearing states it has not been REactived in months till now, on a fresh new HD. I have never bought gold never went to any dumbass addon site, hell i dont even have a Facebook page. 2 things i did with the computer, paid bills and played wow, thats it. Theres about 5 ppl in the world that i gave my email address to MMORPG , 3 are direct family and WOW. ??
I'm sorry but I can't read the whole thread. I read a quarter of it and no one asked this question. So if somebody did in the last 3/4, sorry I missed it.
WHY DID YOUR FRIEND JOSH TELL YOU YOUR ACCOUNT WAS HACKED?
Sounds like you let him use your account and even if you didn't do anything to compromise it, apparently he did.
Bliz should have created a Cata + Auth package for $45 sinice therre was the digi dl option as well. Help people protect themselves from them selves. I imagine all the "Oh noez I've been haxxored!" threads and article would go by the wayside if every account had an authenticator attached.
if you have an ipod touch or iphone the authenticators are free, just a thought.
i have one on my ipod that i use. i actually got one before i even resubbed was tired of getting paranoid about the phishing emails. weither i play a game anymore or not i don't want my efforts to be used for some scumbag gold seller to ruin.
Well...i'm guessing that Josh saw that he logged in via his friends list and tried to chat and the person using his account was clearly not him....