Live script from a half dodgy website or someone else use your comp
Anyone who plays wow who cares about their account should invest in an authenticator anyway its dirt cheap as a phone app. And still inexpensive as a item.
Everyone knows someone Who plays, or has played WoW. Everyone also knows someone who has gotten hacked...hrmmm...
Of all people I know, only one got hacked. And he bought gold at some weird websites. His fault imho.
Just think about it:
WoW caused many people to play computer games who were not much into gaming before, and who do not know how to keep their account data save. And WoW has a huge population. And a lot of them are kids. Combine that, and you know why so many people get hacked.
That conspiracy stuff is just silly. And no, I'm no fanboy of blizzard for sure (starcraft 2 for example I'd never pay a cent for). But I'm a programmer and I worked also as sysop for a while. There are really people say stuff as "hey sysop, my computer doesn't work even though I keep pressing the on-switch" when their computer monitor is switched off. And there are millions of them playing WoW.
Played WOW since release and never been hacked. My wife has played since BC and never been hacked.
Do we use an authenticator? Check.
Use an e-mail that we use only for WOW and family? Check.
Use antivirus, Spy-bot and everything else to protect my computer? Check.
So I highly doubt that there is some conspiracy at work. However, a lot of people get hacked so there is a root cause and I still hold the opinion that hackers do not go after WOW, they go afetr the addons that people THINK they need to effectively play the game. A lot of hacking occurs right after someone returns to WOW or right after a patch. At these times, people are updating their addons. I only use three and its the same three I have always used.
It could very well be due to add-ons - though I personally never use them. That is why I even stated "tin foil hat time". There are many things that could be the main underlying cause. But we cannot disregard all angles.
I have ordered my battlenet authenticator by the way. Hopefully by the time it gets here my account will be restored and all will be good again - I hope.
I'm glad I don't torrent. Sometimes I feel like its a handicap....infact, just the other day I was mentioning to a friend how I bought some movies, his reply was "hmph...you buy movies". Meh, nothing wrong with being legit right?
I would never ever buy gold in WoW. Asking to be hacked yea.
anyone who doesnt have an authenticator...get one! free download app on Ipod / Iphone. thats what I use
I love how the fanboys blame the person that got hacked. Sure, some do it to themselves. However, there are times where it just happens. They disabled my account, and now they say I owe them 15 bucks because of the hacker reactivating my account. I told them how I couldn't even sign in to play the game, and they didn't want to hear it. They only listen to themselves, and I guess they are always right. pfft. WoW got too big, and it will happen to every MMO that gets to their size.
I love how people call others fanboy totally indiscriminant and groundless. I love how people always blame others for whatever misfortune or evils call home. Look at the ToA. Your sub buys you right to use an account based on certain conditions. Protection of the password is not the responsibility of the game provider. You lose it you lose it. If you have proof that someone stole it or leaks it out, take it to the authority.
Crying wolves here is no big man's deal. There are 10+ million active subs, If a few thousand got hacked, that is less than 1%. Chances are, it is not a total hacking of the blizzard database. There are many of us who never have been hacked, and we never come out to scream.
If millions got hacked, that is another situation. Until then, all these conspiracy theories can go home.
Half of those subs are gold spammers, farmers and others..
Also, you said, "There are many of us who never have been hacked, and we never come out to scream."
...
What is the meaning of that? Of course you won't come out and scream if you never been hacked...
Conspiracy theories are usually something off the wall.. getting hacked has happened(either it be the fault of the customer or not), and thus not a theory. It just looks like you come on here to defend a company that could care less about you. Which you even said yourself.
I'll take the conspiracy side and say I think all these hackings are going on so blizzard can sell more authenticators...lol.
I know people that have a random character email address and random character password(15 characters). This friend of mine also has a computer dedicated to playing WoW and has never opened a browser on it or installed a program and has never used his wow email or password anywhere else.
Somehow he was hacked and the blizzard service person on the phone suggested he invest in an authenticator for future protection. He has been using this same method for over 10 years playing MMOs and has never been hacked. Not to mention his WoW account had been inactive for 5 months.
Yeah. I mean, WoW is the biggest MMO, and people can make real life money off of it. They'll find ways to get your account even if you never opened any email, website or anything else.
I'll take the conspiracy side and say I think all these hackings are going on so blizzard can sell more authenticators...lol.
I know people that have a random character email address and random character password(15 characters). This friend of mine also has a computer dedicated to playing WoW and has never opened a browser on it or installed a program and has never used his wow email or password anywhere else.
Somehow he was hacked and the blizzard service person on the phone suggested he invest in an authenticator for future protection. He has been using this same method for over 10 years playing MMOs and has never been hacked. Not to mention his WoW account had been inactive for 5 months.
conspiracy xD
Pretty sure they aren't making any real money off of the authenticators.
I love how the fanboys blame the person that got hacked. Sure, some do it to themselves. However, there are times where it just happens. They disabled my account, and now they say I owe them 15 bucks because of the hacker reactivating my account. I told them how I couldn't even sign in to play the game, and they didn't want to hear it. They only listen to themselves, and I guess they are always right. pfft. WoW got too big, and it will happen to every MMO that gets to their size.
I love how people call others fanboy totally indiscriminant and groundless. I love how people always blame others for whatever misfortune or evils call home. Look at the ToA. Your sub buys you right to use an account based on certain conditions. Protection of the password is not the responsibility of the game provider. You lose it you lose it. If you have proof that someone stole it or leaks it out, take it to the authority.
Crying wolves here is no big man's deal. There are 10+ million active subs, If a few thousand got hacked, that is less than 1%. Chances are, it is not a total hacking of the blizzard database. There are many of us who never have been hacked, and we never come out to scream.
If millions got hacked, that is another situation. Until then, all these conspiracy theories can go home.
Half of those subs are gold spammers, farmers and others.. I hate when people spew this unfounded and speculative bull.
Also, you said, "There are many of us who never have been hacked, and we never come out to scream."
...
What is the meaning of that? Of course you won't come out and scream if you never been hacked...
Conspiracy theories are usually something off the wall.. getting hacked has happened(either it be the fault of the customer or not), and thus not a theory. It just looks like you come on here to defend a company that could care less about you. Which you even said yourself.
Look. Account hacking and account stealing happen. It does. It even happens to those who do a generally good job of protecting themselves. And it happens in a variety of ways in which some we can control and some we can not.
It happened to me last November. My account was permanantly banned due to Gold Selling and other illegal activity. I talked to Blizzard about it and the matter was resolved.
The issue is that there may, and I use the term loosely, have been a security leak or breech at Blizzard when they merged accounts. But there is no proof of this, so it cannot be assumed true. Even though my account was stolen shortly after I ended my 10-day Lich King trial and merged my accounts. I also started receiving phishing emails after that where I never did before.
However, the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of all account stealing and hacking occurs from the end user and some sort of mistake on thier part.
Do I think I did something wrong that got my account stolen? No. But it happened and I have no proof it was Blizzard so I just gotta do what I need to protect myself and make it that much harder for someone to steal my account from my end.
Overall its about common sense and logic. And neither logic nor common sense say that if you cant explain it, it must not be your fault and its someone elses. People just need to stop the QQ, deal with it, put on their big girl panties and move on.
I'll take the conspiracy side and say I think all these hackings are going on so blizzard can sell more authenticators...lol.
I know people that have a random character email address and random character password(15 characters). This friend of mine also has a computer dedicated to playing WoW and has never opened a browser on it or installed a program and has never used his wow email or password anywhere else.
Somehow he was hacked and the blizzard service person on the phone suggested he invest in an authenticator for future protection. He has been using this same method for over 10 years playing MMOs and has never been hacked. Not to mention his WoW account had been inactive for 5 months.
conspiracy xD
Pretty sure they aren't making any real money off of the authenticators.
$7 keychain lol
Luckily I haven't been hacked after seeing that happen to him because I actually use addons and go on 3rd party sites (like this forum). He has OCD about MMOs, He has several computers that only have one game installed on them... I think it's hilairous but he didn't find it very funny.
I'll take the conspiracy side and say I think all these hackings are going on so blizzard can sell more authenticators...lol.
I know people that have a random character email address and random character password(15 characters). This friend of mine also has a computer dedicated to playing WoW and has never opened a browser on it or installed a program and has never used his wow email or password anywhere else.
Somehow he was hacked and the blizzard service person on the phone suggested he invest in an authenticator for future protection. He has been using this same method for over 10 years playing MMOs and has never been hacked. Not to mention his WoW account had been inactive for 5 months.
conspiracy xD
Pretty sure they aren't making any real money off of the authenticators.
I'll take the conspiracy side and say I think all these hackings are going on so blizzard can sell more authenticators...lol.
I know people that have a random character email address and random character password(15 characters). This friend of mine also has a computer dedicated to playing WoW and has never opened a browser on it or installed a program and has never used his wow email or password anywhere else.
Somehow he was hacked and the blizzard service person on the phone suggested he invest in an authenticator for future protection. He has been using this same method for over 10 years playing MMOs and has never been hacked. Not to mention his WoW account had been inactive for 5 months.
conspiracy xD
Pretty sure they aren't making any real money off of the authenticators.
6.50 over millions of players add up
Oh yea, I forgot it doesn't cost anything to make.
I'll take the conspiracy side and say I think all these hackings are going on so blizzard can sell more authenticators...lol.
I know people that have a random character email address and random character password(15 characters). This friend of mine also has a computer dedicated to playing WoW and has never opened a browser on it or installed a program and has never used his wow email or password anywhere else.
Somehow he was hacked and the blizzard service person on the phone suggested he invest in an authenticator for future protection. He has been using this same method for over 10 years playing MMOs and has never been hacked. Not to mention his WoW account had been inactive for 5 months.
conspiracy xD
Pretty sure they aren't making any real money off of the authenticators.
6.50 over millions of players add up
Oh yea, I forgot it doesn't cost anything to make.
Oh yeah, i forgot... it costs like 2 cents to make...
First off, I haven't had a sub to WoW since June of 05. Last December I decided to connect all my keys to my battle.net account. Within 3 weeks I received the ban email. Personally, I do not care about the damn account as I'll never touch the game. But I do find it really odd that after I registered it was banned.
So I go over and log into battle.net and sure enough the account is banned. Now I do find it odd that neither one of my other games got banned, I'd figure that'd use my cdkeys and log onto D2 and go dupe/hack get themselves banned, but those are still valid.
All I'm saying is I don't even play WoW and I got an authenticator on my phone for future protection. That is just plain bad on Blizzard's fault for allowing this crap to happen once the battle.net stuff went active.
Know someone with an authenticator who got hacked less than 8 hours after they cancelled their account. The authenticator was removed from the account in some way. Even Blizz was a bit puzzled.
Things happen, unfortunately. Nothing is ever 100% secure. Best anyone can ever do is either not play at all, or simply do their best to maintain whatever security they can and work with Blizz to get the issue resolved if/when it happens. Sad to say, no matter how secure something is and how much brainpower goes into keeping it that way, there'll always be someone out there with the drive and ability to get past it.
I have to say that IMO .. its a Blizzard employee who is selling customer info .. why do i feel this way ??
First off,just an FYI .. i have 2 computers..one i game with and only game on.. the other is a laptop that i surf/search the net with..
Myself , i played wow when it first came out,...played about a year and then i packed it in ...Unfortunetly my gaming computer went "BOOM" ..no worries,lived on the playstation for abit until i could put together another gaming computer.. about a year wait..
Finally got my gaming computer going and away i went .. woot !!
I have never been back to blizzard or installed wow or any other blizzard game since .. having way to much fun with the fallout series,anyways .. a complete new system, have never even emailed..visited or anything with blizzard..
Guess what folks.. i received an email from Blizzard telling me that not only has my account been banned, but hacked as well..because apparently i even sold and scammed some people in game a few months ago..
Thats pretty good considering i havent touched wow or gone anywhere near it for years .. and please dont go on about downloading a trojan or virus etc .. I have never been hacked,or had games hacked or been banned from any game ,and i have been playing MMO`s for freakin years..
I cant figue out how or even where someone would get my wow info.. from 4 years ago from a hard drive or computer that doesnt even work
PS: myself and my roomate.. we build custom computers for our friends .. in other words i know my way around computers and i also know how to surf the net..
That is why i feel its a Blizzard employee scamming people
I have to say that IMO .. its a Blizzard employee who is selling customer info .. why do i feel this way ??
First off,just an FYI .. i have 2 computers..one i game with and only game on.. the other is a laptop that i surf/search the net with..
Myself , i played wow when it first came out,...played about a year and then i packed it in ...Unfortunetly my gaming computer went "BOOM" ..no worries,lived on the playstation for abit until i could put together another gaming computer.. about a year wait..
Finally got my gaming computer going and away i went .. woot !!
I have never been back to blizzard or installed wow or any other blizzard game since .. having way to much fun with the fallout series,anyways .. a complete new system, have never even emailed..visited or anything with blizzard..
Guess what folks.. i received an email from Blizzard telling me that not only has my account been banned, but hacked as well..because apparently i even sold and scammed some people in game a few months ago..
Thats pretty good considering i havent touched wow or gone anywhere near it for years .. and please dont go on about downloading a trojan or virus etc .. I have never been hacked,or had games hacked or been banned from any game ,and i have been playing MMO`s for freakin years..
I cant figue out how or even where someone would get my wow info.. from 4 years ago from a hard drive or computer that doesnt even work
PS: myself and my roomate.. we build custom computers for our friends .. in other words i know my way around computers and i also know how to surf the net..
That is why i feel its a Blizzard employee scamming people
The ability to build a computer is in no way helpful in preventing hackers/trojans/social engineering.
However, considering the length of time this has been going on, I doubt its a Blizzard related issue. Its far more likely to be a very sophisticated breach of security from an outside source.
Blizzard has access to millions of people. WoW alone is a billion dollar industry. The gold selling industry is estimated to be just as lucrative. You bet they will hire some people to research and develop ways to steal accounts.
I receive at least 2 or 3 WOW phishing emails a week right now on ALL my email adress. Scammers are really hard at work to get your wow account (if you have one).
I have to say that IMO .. its a Blizzard employee who is selling customer info .. why do i feel this way ??
First off,just an FYI .. i have 2 computers..one i game with and only game on.. the other is a laptop that i surf/search the net with..
Myself , i played wow when it first came out,...played about a year and then i packed it in ...Unfortunetly my gaming computer went "BOOM" ..no worries,lived on the playstation for abit until i could put together another gaming computer.. about a year wait..
Finally got my gaming computer going and away i went .. woot !!
I have never been back to blizzard or installed wow or any other blizzard game since .. having way to much fun with the fallout series,anyways .. a complete new system, have never even emailed..visited or anything with blizzard..
Guess what folks.. i received an email from Blizzard telling me that not only has my account been banned, but hacked as well..because apparently i even sold and scammed some people in game a few months ago..
Thats pretty good considering i havent touched wow or gone anywhere near it for years .. and please dont go on about downloading a trojan or virus etc .. I have never been hacked,or had games hacked or been banned from any game ,and i have been playing MMO`s for freakin years..
I cant figue out how or even where someone would get my wow info.. from 4 years ago from a hard drive or computer that doesnt even work
PS: myself and my roomate.. we build custom computers for our friends .. in other words i know my way around computers and i also know how to surf the net..
That is why i feel its a Blizzard employee scamming people
1) Guy binds virus/trojan to a program.
2) You download said program, he is now capable of extracting information from your computer (if said person is smart, he's bound the program with a RAT).
3) He exploits this information and gains access to your account.
Oh and a virus scanner doesn't work squat if the program is using a good private stub. So what you downloaded was a working program that didn't make your AV go haywire, but it was still infected nonetheless.
I have to say that IMO .. its a Blizzard employee who is selling customer info .. why do i feel this way ??
First off,just an FYI .. i have 2 computers..one i game with and only game on.. the other is a laptop that i surf/search the net with..
Myself , i played wow when it first came out,...played about a year and then i packed it in ...Unfortunetly my gaming computer went "BOOM" ..no worries,lived on the playstation for abit until i could put together another gaming computer.. about a year wait..
Finally got my gaming computer going and away i went .. woot !!
I have never been back to blizzard or installed wow or any other blizzard game since .. having way to much fun with the fallout series,anyways .. a complete new system, have never even emailed..visited or anything with blizzard..
Guess what folks.. i received an email from Blizzard telling me that not only has my account been banned, but hacked as well..because apparently i even sold and scammed some people in game a few months ago..
Thats pretty good considering i havent touched wow or gone anywhere near it for years .. and please dont go on about downloading a trojan or virus etc .. I have never been hacked,or had games hacked or been banned from any game ,and i have been playing MMO`s for freakin years..
I cant figue out how or even where someone would get my wow info.. from 4 years ago from a hard drive or computer that doesnt even work
PS: myself and my roomate.. we build custom computers for our friends .. in other words i know my way around computers and i also know how to surf the net..
That is why i feel its a Blizzard employee scamming people
The text in green kinda condradicts the text in yellow. Getting hacked (as in someone asctually remotely hacking into your PC, using a windows vulnerability, going through your firewall, blah blah) is HIGHLY improbable. Most people get hacked for using powerleveling services, sharing computers, playing on a public computer, having easily guessed login info...
To answer your specific case, most likely your email was either simple to guess (a dictionary word), or more likely you had it public (visible to everyone) somewhere in your profile (not necessarily a WoW related forum/site) or you had it as part of your signature (hiding it as "myemail at gmail dot com" does not really help). Your password must of been easy to gues (dictionary word, etc).
However, there is an even easier explanation: the ban email you received was actually a scam-mail. You acted upon it and loged in with your real username/password and passed that info along to the scammers. Thats why its called phishing.
As a rule, never follow links from emails, instead just go to the website manually. And do not give your email away or make it publicly available (including in the signature, thats like a hacker's invitation).
Half of those subs are gold spammers, farmers and others..Proof? You mean to tell me gold farmers are paying Blizz for 5.5million accounts x $15 a month to spam and sell gold? You got to be kidding.
Also, you said, "There are many of us who never have been hacked, and we never come out to scream."
...
What is the meaning of that? Of course you won't come out and scream if you never been hacked...If 1 per thousand got hacked, it is likely that the issue lies in those got hacked, if its a server side compromise, millions will be hacked and you won't see just a few of us complaining. If enough people do not got hacked, the chance of this being a server side compromise is low, that is baynesian probabilty.
Conspiracy theories are usually something off the wall.. getting hacked has happened(either it be the fault of the customer or not), and thus not a theory. It just looks like you come on here to defend a company that could care less about you. Which you even said yourself. I do not come to defend anyone, I am discussing it on the ground of probability, and common sense. I just feel surprised that so many are trying so hard to find a scapegoat when they got hit by a surprise.
With this keylogger on your machine or the site with the infected flash script open in another tab you decide to go check your hotmail, gmail.. whatever and so you type your email address to login as your cookies have expired. EMAIL ADDRESS CAPTURED AND MAYBE PASSWORD CAPTURED. You then just minimise your bowser and boot up WoW, the username is already typed so the key logger aint getting that but you do need to type your password. PASSWORD CAPTURED.
You now have a hacker with a database of email address and assosiated wow password - useful for phishing emails etc - he will just sit on this information selling it on to other hackers and so on - information is money.
Then the Bnet 2.0 change came along, most people would create an account with their primary Email address - hum guess what the hacker now has your WoW login details (EMAIL & WOW PASSWORD).
It's is only a matter of time that the hacker tests with the information and gains access to your account.
Comments
Everyone knows someone Who plays, or has played WoW. Everyone also knows someone who has gotten hacked...hrmmm...
And they probably all download torrents.
Eleanor Rigby.
Live script from a half dodgy website or someone else use your comp
Anyone who plays wow who cares about their account should invest in an authenticator anyway its dirt cheap as a phone app. And still inexpensive as a item.
Of all people I know, only one got hacked. And he bought gold at some weird websites. His fault imho.
Just think about it:
WoW caused many people to play computer games who were not much into gaming before, and who do not know how to keep their account data save. And WoW has a huge population. And a lot of them are kids. Combine that, and you know why so many people get hacked.
That conspiracy stuff is just silly. And no, I'm no fanboy of blizzard for sure (starcraft 2 for example I'd never pay a cent for). But I'm a programmer and I worked also as sysop for a while. There are really people say stuff as "hey sysop, my computer doesn't work even though I keep pressing the on-switch" when their computer monitor is switched off. And there are millions of them playing WoW.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
It could very well be due to add-ons - though I personally never use them. That is why I even stated "tin foil hat time". There are many things that could be the main underlying cause. But we cannot disregard all angles.
I have ordered my battlenet authenticator by the way. Hopefully by the time it gets here my account will be restored and all will be good again - I hope.
I'm glad I don't torrent. Sometimes I feel like its a handicap....infact, just the other day I was mentioning to a friend how I bought some movies, his reply was "hmph...you buy movies". Meh, nothing wrong with being legit right?
I would never ever buy gold in WoW. Asking to be hacked yea.
anyone who doesnt have an authenticator...get one! free download app on Ipod / Iphone. thats what I use
I love how people call others fanboy totally indiscriminant and groundless. I love how people always blame others for whatever misfortune or evils call home. Look at the ToA. Your sub buys you right to use an account based on certain conditions. Protection of the password is not the responsibility of the game provider. You lose it you lose it. If you have proof that someone stole it or leaks it out, take it to the authority.
Crying wolves here is no big man's deal. There are 10+ million active subs, If a few thousand got hacked, that is less than 1%. Chances are, it is not a total hacking of the blizzard database. There are many of us who never have been hacked, and we never come out to scream.
If millions got hacked, that is another situation. Until then, all these conspiracy theories can go home.
Half of those subs are gold spammers, farmers and others..Also, you said, "There are many of us who never have been hacked, and we never come out to scream."
...
What is the meaning of that? Of course you won't come out and scream if you never been hacked...
Conspiracy theories are usually something off the wall.. getting hacked has happened(either it be the fault of the customer or not), and thus not a theory. It just looks like you come on here to defend a company that could care less about you. Which you even said yourself.
I'll take the conspiracy side and say I think all these hackings are going on so blizzard can sell more authenticators...lol.
I know people that have a random character email address and random character password(15 characters). This friend of mine also has a computer dedicated to playing WoW and has never opened a browser on it or installed a program and has never used his wow email or password anywhere else.
Somehow he was hacked and the blizzard service person on the phone suggested he invest in an authenticator for future protection. He has been using this same method for over 10 years playing MMOs and has never been hacked. Not to mention his WoW account had been inactive for 5 months.
conspiracy xD
Yeah. I mean, WoW is the biggest MMO, and people can make real life money off of it. They'll find ways to get your account even if you never opened any email, website or anything else.
Pretty sure they aren't making any real money off of the authenticators.
Eleanor Rigby.
Look. Account hacking and account stealing happen. It does. It even happens to those who do a generally good job of protecting themselves. And it happens in a variety of ways in which some we can control and some we can not.
It happened to me last November. My account was permanantly banned due to Gold Selling and other illegal activity. I talked to Blizzard about it and the matter was resolved.
The issue is that there may, and I use the term loosely, have been a security leak or breech at Blizzard when they merged accounts. But there is no proof of this, so it cannot be assumed true. Even though my account was stolen shortly after I ended my 10-day Lich King trial and merged my accounts. I also started receiving phishing emails after that where I never did before.
However, the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of all account stealing and hacking occurs from the end user and some sort of mistake on thier part.
Do I think I did something wrong that got my account stolen? No. But it happened and I have no proof it was Blizzard so I just gotta do what I need to protect myself and make it that much harder for someone to steal my account from my end.
Overall its about common sense and logic. And neither logic nor common sense say that if you cant explain it, it must not be your fault and its someone elses. People just need to stop the QQ, deal with it, put on their big girl panties and move on.
$7 keychain
lol
Luckily I haven't been hacked after seeing that happen to him because I actually use addons and go on 3rd party sites (like this forum). He has OCD about MMOs, He has several computers that only have one game installed on them... I think it's hilairous but he didn't find it very funny.
6.50 over millions of players add up
Oh yea, I forgot it doesn't cost anything to make.
Eleanor Rigby.
Oh yeah, i forgot... it costs like 2 cents to make...
First off, I haven't had a sub to WoW since June of 05. Last December I decided to connect all my keys to my battle.net account. Within 3 weeks I received the ban email. Personally, I do not care about the damn account as I'll never touch the game. But I do find it really odd that after I registered it was banned.
So I go over and log into battle.net and sure enough the account is banned. Now I do find it odd that neither one of my other games got banned, I'd figure that'd use my cdkeys and log onto D2 and go dupe/hack get themselves banned, but those are still valid.
All I'm saying is I don't even play WoW and I got an authenticator on my phone for future protection. That is just plain bad on Blizzard's fault for allowing this crap to happen once the battle.net stuff went active.
Know someone with an authenticator who got hacked less than 8 hours after they cancelled their account. The authenticator was removed from the account in some way. Even Blizz was a bit puzzled.
Things happen, unfortunately. Nothing is ever 100% secure. Best anyone can ever do is either not play at all, or simply do their best to maintain whatever security they can and work with Blizz to get the issue resolved if/when it happens. Sad to say, no matter how secure something is and how much brainpower goes into keeping it that way, there'll always be someone out there with the drive and ability to get past it.
G`day mates ...
I have to say that IMO .. its a Blizzard employee who is selling customer info .. why do i feel this way ??
First off,just an FYI .. i have 2 computers..one i game with and only game on.. the other is a laptop that i surf/search the net with..
Myself , i played wow when it first came out,...played about a year and then i packed it in ...Unfortunetly my gaming computer went "BOOM" ..no worries,lived on the playstation for abit until i could put together another gaming computer.. about a year wait..
Finally got my gaming computer going and away i went .. woot !!
I have never been back to blizzard or installed wow or any other blizzard game since .. having way to much fun with the fallout series,anyways .. a complete new system, have never even emailed..visited or anything with blizzard..
Guess what folks.. i received an email from Blizzard telling me that not only has my account been banned, but hacked as well..because apparently i even sold and scammed some people in game a few months ago..
Thats pretty good considering i havent touched wow or gone anywhere near it for years .. and please dont go on about downloading a trojan or virus etc .. I have never been hacked,or had games hacked or been banned from any game ,and i have been playing MMO`s for freakin years..
I cant figue out how or even where someone would get my wow info.. from 4 years ago from a hard drive or computer that doesnt even work
PS: myself and my roomate.. we build custom computers for our friends .. in other words i know my way around computers and i also know how to surf the net..
That is why i feel its a Blizzard employee scamming people
The ability to build a computer is in no way helpful in preventing hackers/trojans/social engineering.
However, considering the length of time this has been going on, I doubt its a Blizzard related issue. Its far more likely to be a very sophisticated breach of security from an outside source.
Blizzard has access to millions of people. WoW alone is a billion dollar industry. The gold selling industry is estimated to be just as lucrative. You bet they will hire some people to research and develop ways to steal accounts.
Do what i did, come up with a 1337 password.
Get the mobile authenticator for your iphone
reset said iphone. Now the account will be forever locked unless you can provide substantial info to blizzard.
It's a win lose
I receive at least 2 or 3 WOW phishing emails a week right now on ALL my email adress. Scammers are really hard at work to get your wow account (if you have one).
1) Guy binds virus/trojan to a program.
2) You download said program, he is now capable of extracting information from your computer (if said person is smart, he's bound the program with a RAT).
3) He exploits this information and gains access to your account.
Oh and a virus scanner doesn't work squat if the program is using a good private stub. So what you downloaded was a working program that didn't make your AV go haywire, but it was still infected nonetheless.
Eleanor Rigby.
The text in green kinda condradicts the text in yellow. Getting hacked (as in someone asctually remotely hacking into your PC, using a windows vulnerability, going through your firewall, blah blah) is HIGHLY improbable. Most people get hacked for using powerleveling services, sharing computers, playing on a public computer, having easily guessed login info...
To answer your specific case, most likely your email was either simple to guess (a dictionary word), or more likely you had it public (visible to everyone) somewhere in your profile (not necessarily a WoW related forum/site) or you had it as part of your signature (hiding it as "myemail at gmail dot com" does not really help). Your password must of been easy to gues (dictionary word, etc).
However, there is an even easier explanation: the ban email you received was actually a scam-mail. You acted upon it and loged in with your real username/password and passed that info along to the scammers. Thats why its called phishing.
As a rule, never follow links from emails, instead just go to the website manually. And do not give your email away or make it publicly available (including in the signature, thats like a hacker's invitation).
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
The reason some of you got hacked after the bnet switch is simple and still your responsibilty.
First off becuase you get the BAN email on a friday does not mean you were hacked the day before.
Hackers could of keylogged your machine a long long time ago, you dont need to download a dodgy mod or open a phishing mail, flash script is good enough ( http://www.wow.com/2008/05/28/new-exploits-target-flash/ ).
With this keylogger on your machine or the site with the infected flash script open in another tab you decide to go check your hotmail, gmail.. whatever and so you type your email address to login as your cookies have expired. EMAIL ADDRESS CAPTURED AND MAYBE PASSWORD CAPTURED. You then just minimise your bowser and boot up WoW, the username is already typed so the key logger aint getting that but you do need to type your password. PASSWORD CAPTURED.
You now have a hacker with a database of email address and assosiated wow password - useful for phishing emails etc - he will just sit on this information selling it on to other hackers and so on - information is money.
Then the Bnet 2.0 change came along, most people would create an account with their primary Email address - hum guess what the hacker now has your WoW login details (EMAIL & WOW PASSWORD).
It's is only a matter of time that the hacker tests with the information and gains access to your account.
Thats how easy it is.