You used your account info to do the battlenet thing, and they have access to your computer or email, got the info now.
Your problem, not Blizzards.
<Mod Edit>
It is very much Blizzards problem, whenever something like this happens it lessens the value of their game. This happens more than you would think for reasons your little brain cannot comprehend, apparently.
I have a computer that I use specifically for gaming, meaning; I do not browse the internet on it save for the World of Warcraft forums/account management.
My account was hacked back at the start of Lich King, and I was never actually able to get it back. This is after a LOT of time and effort trying to work with Blizzard.
This is indeed Blizzards problem, they need to take better steps to account security/recovery or stuff like this really hurts their reputation (be it the users fault or not).
It is Blizzards job to keep those accounts safe. It doesn't hurt me any if they stop getting my money and the stolen account sells gold or bot mines underground in wintergrasp something, in turn lessening the quality of their game.
I actually remember a case where a Guildie was hacked and his character cleaned out the guild bank and de'd/vendered everything. They spread the gold around to several accounts and Blizzard wasn't able to get it back.
It is a shame indeed; but not just the users. It's also Blizzards shame.
Playing: *sigh* back to WoW -------- Waiting for: SW:TOR, APB, WoD --------- Played and loved: Eve and WoW -------- Played and hated: WoW:WotLK, Warhammer, every single F2P
Yes, it's an influx. Blizzard call centres are 12/5 constantly having an "influx of callers".
No, it's not normally the players' faults in this particular case - I haven't used anything other than QuestHelper that is 3rd party (which, I'll admit, would be a huge hit on any gold farmer's idea to hack accounts).
The email -> battle.net login is stupid - gg Blizzard.
The $6.50 authenticator is just another way of getting Blizzard a bit more of a cash influx - they're starting the nickeling and diming, but I'm just a hopeless lore fag who's waiting, so desperately, for WoW to slowly merge into a gear-based sandbox setting.
Need I mention the potential added future races? Centaur, Harpies, Pandaren, Furbolg, Kobold, etc. etc. etc. etc.
That alone has me drooling like a fanboy, even though it won't happen (in this decade)
Anyway, bleh, whatever - keep on defending Blizzard, they're a fairly good developer as far as good, polished games go - but I'm on the hacked-account players' sides on this one. Someone f'd up bigtime here.
I am playing EVE and it's alright... level V skills are a bit much.
Again lets not forget this ALSO inpacts Starcraft and Diablo once they get released sseing as Battlenet is ment to be a 'all-in-one' account, Blizzard need to get their act together with sercuring Battlenet otherwise they aren't just losing WoW sales but ALL their newest products
Again lets not forget this ALSO inpacts Starcraft and Diablo once they get released sseing as Battlenet is ment to be a 'all-in-one' account, Blizzard need to get their act together with sercuring Battlenet otherwise they aren't just losing WoW sales but ALL their newest products
Yeah, it's going to be real fun when I get Diablo III and can't play because blizzard's "new and improved b.net" system is screwed over by constant hackings (or inside jobs... *dons tinfoil hat, and continues*)
Imagine how much a currently disgruntled Blizzard employee could make from the right, evil people?
I am playing EVE and it's alright... level V skills are a bit much.
Yeah, it's going to be real fun when I get Diablo III and can't play because blizzard's "new and improved b.net" system is screwed over by constant hackings (or inside jobs... *dons tinfoil hat, and continues*)
Imagine how much a currently disgruntled Blizzard employee could make from the right, evil people?
So spending 50 cents on a cell phone authenticator is asking too much then ...
This is pure and meaningless trolling.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Yeah, it's going to be real fun when I get Diablo III and can't play because blizzard's "new and improved b.net" system is screwed over by constant hackings (or inside jobs... *dons tinfoil hat, and continues*)
Imagine how much a currently disgruntled Blizzard employee could make from the right, evil people?
So spending 50 cents on a cell phone authenticator is asking too much then ...
This is pure and meaningless trolling.
You DO realise many people hack iphone/touch/phonesmaking the whole sercuity thing pointless? The dongle imo is the only sercure way - but either way no matter what you are buying the players are STILL paying extra to fix a flawed system..
It's only trolling if it's not an issue or pure bull - this IS an issue when even Blizzard can't handle the amount of hacking going on.
Yeah, it's going to be real fun when I get Diablo III and can't play because blizzard's "new and improved b.net" system is screwed over by constant hackings (or inside jobs... *dons tinfoil hat, and continues*)
Imagine how much a currently disgruntled Blizzard employee could make from the right, evil people?
So spending 50 cents on a cell phone authenticator is asking too much then ...
This is pure and meaningless trolling.
the cell phone authenticators are of very limited use, firstly it requires an actual cellphone.. personally i dont see the point of getting one just so i can put an authenticator on it.. but even if you do have one, you might not be in an area where wifi connectivity is available, yet another pointless app imo. if your going to get an authenticator, then your better off getting a proper one.
Yeah, it's going to be real fun when I get Diablo III and can't play because blizzard's "new and improved b.net" system is screwed over by constant hackings (or inside jobs... *dons tinfoil hat, and continues*)
Imagine how much a currently disgruntled Blizzard employee could make from the right, evil people?
So spending 50 cents on a cell phone authenticator is asking too much then ...
This is pure and meaningless trolling.
the cell phone authenticators are of very limited use, firstly it requires an actual cellphone.. personally i dont see the point of getting one just so i can put an authenticator on it.. but even if you do have one, you might not be in an area where wifi connectivity is available, yet another pointless app imo. if your going to get an authenticator, then your better off getting a proper one.
A recent study in Germany showed that 95% of ... 11 year olds had a personal mobile phone.
And ... you don't have one.
BTW the cellphone authenticators work the same way as the hardware authenticator.
Wifi ??? So you think the hackers camp around your house anyway...
Conclusion : If your account was hacked and you are too lazy to install an authenticator - as cheap as 50 cents - sorry but the gates are that way ----- >
Every German bank works with an authenticator to do home banking. Blizzard is as vulnerable as a bank these days.
Make your conclusions how SILLY this thread really is: 50 cents of excuses...
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Accounts were hacked before the move to the use of an email address. On a massive scale. I'm still utterly unconvinced that using an email address as ID makes it any less secure than it was before, but I've never been hacked under either system, and I now have an authenticator.
Unfortunately this is never going to be a problem Blizzard can solve.
Blizzard said very clearly from the release of WoW - do not share your account information and do not use powerlevelling services or buy gold.
People ignored that, did what they wanted, and got hacked. Their friend/sister/ex-girlfriend/brother deleted their stuff.
The powerlevelling companies stripped the account after handing it back, because the person paying for the service didn't change their password. I imagine it was a great source of credit card numbers too.
There is nothing that Blizzard can do to prevent a player from making their account details available to someone else, whether deliberately or by accident by reusing passwords/username, using unsecure PCs, using an internet cafe with someone watching over their shoulder, using antivirus which is out of date, not updating Flashplayer etc etc.
Blizzard cannot secure your account.
There are some fantastic conspiracy theories about how all Blizzard wanted to do was leave security holes so they could sell you an authenticator, but how much time and effort do you think it takes one Game Master to put your account back together after it's been hacked? It is in Blizzard's interests to reduce account hacking to zero because of the huge cost in manpower that it takes to deal with that problem.
Blizzard employees don't have access to your password. They don't need it to do their job, which is why they never ask for it. The number of people at Blizzard with sufficiently high security access to the authentication servers to pull that information is going to be minimal, and as I said before, if they're going to commit the kind of fraud that would get them fired and possibly have legal action taken against them, they wouldn't be going for nickel and dime player accounts, but the GM accounts which can create the gold straight up.
The consistent whining about how Blizzard should be responsible for something out of their hands is utterly typical of the way most people refuse to take responsibility for their own stuff. You wouldn't leave your valuable car unlocked in a bad neighbourhood, and then blame the police for not ensuring that it didn't get stolen, or come up with a conspiracy theory about how the police don't arrest people who steal cars cause they're really in on the deal.
If the security of the car matters, lock it, get an alarm or an immobiliser. If the security of the account matters, get an authenticator. Complaining that it really is up to someone else to take responsibility for your decisions is just silly.
I find it interesting how so many people with 5 posts only got their WoW accounts hacked and they did not do anything anything wrong. I work as a CSR so I know when people call to complain it is NEVER their fault. It is ALWAYS the company fault. People always do everything right and never make a mistake. Its ridiculous to even consider that a person with no technical PC knowledge is better protected from hackers then a multi-million corporation with a professional team guarding its data. No sir, not the people's faults. It must be the company - their bad security or even an insider job.
I have some 2000 posts to these forums to my name.
I have played WoW since beta and my account has been active the entire time and I'm very much a propoent of the game and have staunchly defended Blizzard and WoW.
I have worked as a mainframe programmer for over 20 years at some of the largest companies in the US including Sprint, MCI, Verizon and Southwest Airlines accessing various databases and sometimes dealing with the security of those databases.
I have been working with PC's since I was 16, some 30 years ago. I have built, upgraded and serviced my own PC's. I have fixed countless numbers of other people's PC's including finding and removing viruses or other malware since the days of DOS. I have coded in HTML and C++. My friends consider me an expert and come to me when their PC is not working.
I have always had an anti-virus package installed on my PC and it's always updated.
I always have the latest updates for Windows installed on my PC.
I do not visit unsecure websites.
I do not fall for phishing e-mails.
I don't give out my password.
I'm aware of most of the most common techniques that hackers use to try to compromise your data.
I have a firewall on my PC that I constantly monitor
I have visited websites that will check to see if my PC is vulnerable to attack and my PC always comes up clean.
And yet my WoW account information WAS compromised in April of this year. After it was compromised I did a full system scan of the only PC that I use to play the game with 2 different Anti-virus packages and nothing was found. I have yet to determine exactly how my account information was compromised.
I understand people's reluctance to believe that it could be a Blizzard problem. In fact I am very reluctant myself to believe that it's a Blizzard problem, however I WON'T rule it out like so many others are attempting to do. Just because it's not probable does not mean it's impossible. Security breaches do happen to even the most secure data in the world if only for a brief period of time, but that is usually all it takes, a very brief time.
It's no skin off my nose if you want to continue to believe that's it's ALL user error. You're probably correct. I just wish you wouldn't force your opinion down other's throats who may not agree or insinuate they don't have a clue about security.
Pappy, since it sounds like you're in the trade I'm sure you're well aware of this, and for anyone who isn't just go find yourself a decent IT related news site and you will see that companies that SHOULD be secure get hacked ALL the time, most of the time people only hear about it when it's a financial company who is required by law to disclose this info to it's customers, and even then it's usually weeks to months later before they do so. I am NOT saying Blizzard/Activision security has ever been compromised, but I am saying it is well within the realm of possibility and they are under no legal obligation to admit it if it ever does happen. From a shareholder perspective it would be best to keep such news as quiet as possible.
In my own case I was responsible for my account being compromised, BUT I am uncomfortable with the amount and type of information other people were able to get out of Blizzard "on my behalf" without my consent or account information details.
To summarize - Do not transfer your account to battle.net or it will get hacked and Blizzard is under no requirement to tell you about it. So there's nothing you can do to get it back.
Varchar, you know that's now what either of us are saying and it's posts like this that undermine what we are trying to say. Posts like this do nothing more than try to throw a bad light on Blizzard. I love Blizzard and I love their products, anyone who's been on this forum for awhile knows that, so please don't use my posts to try to legitimize your own feelings.
Well I still don't understand the logic behind your post. I think it is reasonable to expect companies to keep information safe, and that if they are compromised that they should let customers know about it.
In this case I still think that it's possible Blizzard WAS compromised and they are playing the bullshit "You were hacked" card to everyone that is getting screwed by this.
I am one of these people. I have played this game fairly for 4 fucking years, I never sold an account, never gave a friend my login, never bought gold, but I still get fucked and I'm really upset about it because I have no explanation.
Yes, it's possible. But it's more likely that you where hacked.
I find it interesting how so many people with 5 posts only got their WoW accounts hacked and they did not do anything anything wrong. I work as a CSR so I know when people call to complain it is NEVER their fault. It is ALWAYS the company fault. People always do everything right and never make a mistake. Its ridiculous to even consider that a person with no technical PC knowledge is better protected from hackers then a multi-million corporation with a professional team guarding its data. No sir, not the people's faults. It must be the company - their bad security or even an insider job.
I have some 2000 posts to these forums to my name.
I have played WoW since beta and my account has been active the entire time and I'm very much a propoent of the game and have staunchly defended Blizzard and WoW.
I have worked as a mainframe programmer for over 20 years at some of the largest companies in the US including Sprint, MCI, Verizon and Southwest Airlines accessing various databases and sometimes dealing with the security of those databases.
I have been working with PC's since I was 16, some 30 years ago. I have built, upgraded and serviced my own PC's. I have fixed countless numbers of other people's PC's including finding and removing viruses or other malware since the days of DOS. I have coded in HTML and C++. My friends consider me an expert and come to me when their PC is not working.
I have always had an anti-virus package installed on my PC and it's always updated.
I always have the latest updates for Windows installed on my PC.
I do not visit unsecure websites.
I do not fall for phishing e-mails.
I don't give out my password.
I'm aware of most of the most common techniques that hackers use to try to compromise your data.
I have a firewall on my PC that I constantly monitor
I have visited websites that will check to see if my PC is vulnerable to attack and my PC always comes up clean.
And yet my WoW account information WAS compromised in April of this year. After it was compromised I did a full system scan of the only PC that I use to play the game with 2 different Anti-virus packages and nothing was found. I have yet to determine exactly how my account information was compromised.
I understand people's reluctance to believe that it could be a Blizzard problem. In fact I am very reluctant myself to believe that it's a Blizzard problem, however I WON'T rule it out like so many others are attempting to do. Just because it's not probable does not mean it's impossible. Security breaches do happen to even the most secure data in the world if only for a brief period of time, but that is usually all it takes, a very brief time.
It's no skin off my nose if you want to continue to believe that's it's ALL user error. You're probably correct. I just wish you wouldn't force your opinion down other's throats who may not agree or insinuate they don't have a clue about security.
Pappy, since it sounds like you're in the trade I'm sure you're well aware of this, and for anyone who isn't just go find yourself a decent IT related news site and you will see that companies that SHOULD be secure get hacked ALL the time, most of the time people only hear about it when it's a financial company who is required by law to disclose this info to it's customers, and even then it's usually weeks to months later before they do so. I am NOT saying Blizzard/Activision security has ever been compromised, but I am saying it is well within the realm of possibility and they are under no legal obligation to admit it if it ever does happen. From a shareholder perspective it would be best to keep such news as quiet as possible.
In my own case I was responsible for my account being compromised, BUT I am uncomfortable with the amount and type of information other people were able to get out of Blizzard "on my behalf" without my consent or account information details.
To summarize - Do not transfer your account to battle.net or it will get hacked and Blizzard is under no requirement to tell you about it. So there's nothing you can do to get it back.
Varchar, you know that's now what either of us are saying and it's posts like this that undermine what we are trying to say. Posts like this do nothing more than try to throw a bad light on Blizzard. I love Blizzard and I love their products, anyone who's been on this forum for awhile knows that, so please don't use my posts to try to legitimize your own feelings.
Well I still don't understand the logic behind your post. I think it is reasonable to expect companies to keep information safe, and that if they are compromised that they should let customers know about it.
In this case I still think that it's possible Blizzard WAS compromised and they are playing the bullshit "You were hacked" card to everyone that is getting screwed by this.
I am one of these people. I have played this game fairly for 4 fucking years, I never sold an account, never gave a friend my login, never bought gold, but I still get fucked and I'm really upset about it because I have no explanation.
Yes, it's possible. But it's more likely that you where hacked.
More than possible, entirely probable in fact, although might not have bought gold, or given your login to a friend, have you ever used the game add-ons, and did you virus check them before installing them? also, do you use the same password on any other game, forum, email account. responded to an email claiming to be from Blizzard etc.. the number of ways in which you may have been hacked, are, well, numerous, and unless your skilled in IP etc, you probably wouldnt know about it until the deed is perpetrated etc. just as a baseline, everyone should have installed on their computer, a decent firewall (not windows homebrand.. epic fail) anti virus, and antispyware/malware software, though with some of the paid antivirus programs you get that as well, but for the freebies, its usually not present. and then you need to run those programs at least once a week... but, i suspect that even that wouldnt have protected you entirely, as most of the hacked accounts are probably the result of phishing..
I bet he/she got one of them emails that says your accounts been compromised click here to change your password / edit your information. Been alot of them going out lately and its silly how people fall for a simple email scam like that.
yeah, I used to get like 5 of those a day. Email filter ftw
Now they have started sending similar emails for Aion btw! lol
I have not played my Aion account in about 6 months and I got one of these yesterday after work hours. I knew it was a fake because my work place PC has very tight security which told me it was a scam.... but I knew it anyway.
Guys just download the mobile phone Battlenet authenticator - they've got it for just about every mobile out there now and it only costs 50p (hate giving any more money to Blizz but in this case its well worth it.)
They don't have my model of Blackberry yet or else I would have grabbed one already. Last time I checked it was 99 cents which is well worth it if they only had my model available.
Just to make sure false information doesn't keep getting repeated.
Addons are 100% safe. They cannot hack your password or login information. It is impossible. As long as you only extract the files you are 100% safe. Addons do not even load until after you have logged into the game, so they cannot scan your account information.
If the addon you download has an installer, then you are not getting an addon, but rather a 3rd party program. Addons should never ever need an installer, .exe, .bat or any other form of executable file to work. Any addon that asks the user to go through special installation instructions should be treated as a virus, no matter how popular the mod is. Every addon site warns against addons that request the user to take special installation instruction. Buyer beware if you will.
Guys just download the mobile phone Battlenet authenticator - they've got it for just about every mobile out there now and it only costs 50p (hate giving any more money to Blizz but in this case its well worth it.)
They don't have my model of Blackberry yet or else I would have grabbed one already. Last time I checked it was 99 cents which is well worth it if they only had my model available.
plus got to take into account what happens when you get a new phone the following year.. seeing as people tend to get new ones every year practically. ..
I did get my account restored, but it does not change the fact that it should not have been compromised in the first place. They sent me the bullshit email giving me security tips, like the whole thing was my fault, what a fucking SCAM!
So it seems if you need your account restored you should probably call them now, because I'm sure they are restoring every damn person that calls in just wanting this shit to go away as quick as possible.
SO IF YOU WANT YOUR ACCOUNT RESTORED, FOR WHATEVER REASON, NOW IS THE TIME TO CALL!
My account was permanently banned and I have not played the game in 2 years. I think someone hacked inside of blizzard's systems or something. Why would they ban me for gold selling even if someone hacked it as they can't even log in?
In order to set this up, it stands to reason that accounts are compromised, assessed, and then left dormant with no further damage done until needed again by the hacker, once an order for gold has been made which can be met by the hacked account, or a combination of hacked accounts.
There's a couple problems with this theory. First it assumes that the user is not going to change the password in the meantime. The longer the account is left alone the more likely the user could change the password. This is especially true of inactive accounts because there's a good possibility that the user will return to the game and won't remember the password after not having played for awhile and will have to reset the password and then the account information would have to be compromised again. I can see hackers leaving a compromised account alone for maybe a week or 2 or perhaps even a month or so, but a year or 2 or 3? Highly unlikely. And we are seeing more of that lately.
Plus it only makes sense to keep the account on hold like that if you want to use the account for gold selling. To spam gold selling messages there's no reason to wait, that can be done immediately.
I did get my account restored, but it does not change the fact that it should not have been compromised in the first place. They sent me the bullshit email giving me security tips, like the whole thing was my fault, what a fucking SCAM! So it seems if you need your account restored you should probably call them now, because I'm sure they are restoring every damn person that calls in just wanting this shit to go away as quick as possible. SO IF YOU WANT YOUR ACCOUNT RESTORED, FOR WHATEVER REASON, NOW IS THE TIME TO CALL!
Yeah, blizzard is putting their users through hell for what reason?
I hope you don't say it is to sell them something that costs $6, has to be manufactured, packaged and shipped. Something tells me there isn't a lot of profit in that.
If blizzard wanted to simply make money they would just make another virtual pet and make far more without the hassle of pissing their customers off.
My account was permanently banned and I have not played the game in 2 years. I think someone hacked inside of blizzard's systems or something. Why would they ban me for gold selling even if someone hacked it as they can't even log in?
Did you click the link in the email that said you were banned and go to the blizzard website?
Did you try to log into your account to see if it was banned?
In order to set this up, it stands to reason that accounts are compromised, assessed, and then left dormant with no further damage done until needed again by the hacker, once an order for gold has been made which can be met by the hacked account, or a combination of hacked accounts.
There's a couple problems with this theory. First it assumes that the user is not going to change the password in the meantime. The longer the account is left alone the more likely the user could change the password. This is especially true of inactive accounts because there's a good possibility that the user will return to the game and won't remember the password after not having played for awhile and will have to reset the password and then the account information would have to be compromised again. I can see hackers leaving a compromised account alone for maybe a week or 2 or perhaps even a month or so, but a year or 2 or 3? Highly unlikely. And we are seeing more of that lately.
Plus it only makes sense to keep the account on hold like that if you want to use the account for gold selling. To spam gold selling messages there's no reason to wait, that can be done immediately.
Something to chew on.
When hackers steal an account that someone was actively playing, the player would try to get their account back within a day or so. This left little time for the hackers to put the account to full use.
When hackers take over inactive accounts, they can get much more use out of those accounts. Weeks or months.
This reduces the over churn that hackers will go through with accounts. The longer they have access to the account, the less they need to hack. The more they hack, the more they have in reserve. The few people who do reset their password is trivial in comparison to the number of accounts they lost access to when an active player is using the account.
TLDR version
Longer access to accounts means hackers burn through less hacked accounts and can stockpile hacked account information for future use.
For all we know the change to battlenet has increased blizzards ability to spot hackers and they are banning them quicker which is forcing hackers to use up their saved hacked accounts.
Your Authenticator is $6 dollars times 10 million subscribers
This statement speaks very loudly. Even if Blizzard isnt to blame, which im not so sure, its a pretty good pay day for them.
Now subtract what it cost to have those designed and programmed. Add in the back end server infrastructure required to support them, and what it costs to have them manufactured, shipped out to Blizzards store locations, and the personnel to deal with them, and their delivery. I'm betting that what remains is a MUCH less impressive figure, if its positive at all. But thats irrelevant. Blizzards success(more than 11 million players) and the market for gold/accounts is what attracted the hackers. The practical solution is to lock down accounts with authenticators. Blizzard should ideally offer one to everyone. But they are a corporation, and suits seldom come up with such simple solutions.
If they are making $1 a piece its still a good pay day for Blizzard and please dont tell me they are doing it at cost or losing money. I may not be as smart of some of you folks explaining how its all the players faults but I do know a bit about how a business operates and losing money or even breaking even isnt in the picture.
Something to chew on. When hackers steal an account that someone was actively playing, the player would try to get their account back within a day or so. This left little time for the hackers to put the account to full use. When hackers take over inactive accounts, they can get much more use out of those accounts. Weeks or months.
To do what? A gold seller needs about 2 hours to clean an account of all it's assets, send the gold on and then start spamming gold selling messages. How do I know this? Because it was about 2 hours between the time that I got the first e-mail message that my password was changed and the e-mail that said my account had been banned for advertising. It was cleaned out in the meantime.
You ONLY need a hacked account to do something that will get the account banned. Hackers can just go purchase a legit account to farm for gold or whatever else they need to do, they don't need a hacked account for that. Now maybe it saves them a little time by having an account that already may have a lvl 80 toon on it or something, but again they are running the risk that someone will see activity on an inactive account and they will be discovered and the account suspended before they have a chance to do whatever they need to do. You see all the posts here in this thread where the person who's account was compromised didn't notice, but guild members, friends etc suddently see someone online that they thought had quit and they contact the player to ask them when they started playing again and that tips the user off to find out their account has been compromised. The longer they use a compromised account, the more likely the original user will try to get it back and the account will be suspended by Blizzard making that account useless to the hacker.
They are not just risking the user changing the password, they are risking the account being suspended when the true owner calls Blizzard and says their account has been compromised. No, I don't see gold sellers waiting a lot of time to use the account.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong. I'm not a hacker.
Something to chew on. When hackers steal an account that someone was actively playing, the player would try to get their account back within a day or so. This left little time for the hackers to put the account to full use. When hackers take over inactive accounts, they can get much more use out of those accounts. Weeks or months.
To do what? A gold seller needs about 2 hours to clean an account of all it's assets, send the gold on and then start spamming gold selling messages. How do I know this? Because it was about 2 hours between the time that I got the first e-mail message that my password was changed and the e-mail that said my account had been banned for advertising. It was cleaned out in the meantime.
You ONLY need a hacked account to do something that will get the account banned. Hackers can just go purchase a legit account to farm for gold or whatever else they need to do, they don't need a hacked account for that. Now maybe it saves them a little time by having an account that already may have a lvl 80 toon on it or something, but again they are running the risk that someone will see activity on an inactive account and they will be discovered and the account suspended before they have a chance to do whatever they need to do. You see all the posts here in this thread where the person who's account was compromised didn't notice, but guild members, friends etc suddently see someone online that they thought had quit and they contact the player to ask them when they started playing again and that tips the user off to find out their account has been compromised. The longer they use a compromised account, the more likely the original user will try to get it back and the account will be suspended by Blizzard making that account useless to the hacker.
They are not just risking the user changing the password, they are risking the account being suspended when the true owner calls Blizzard and says their account has been compromised. No, I don't see gold sellers waiting a lot of time to use the account.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong. I'm not a hacker.
Hackers also use accounts to bot farm gold. Not every account is stripped clean, because it all depends on the value of the items and the character. You have never read where someones character was server transferred or leveled up a few levels?
Hackers don't purchase accounts, because that costs money that will just get banned sooner or later? Why do that when they have a readily available stream of characters they can steal for free?
Again, the chances of an inactive player noticing their account is hacked is tiny in comparison to what an active user will notice. Hackers will get far more use out of an inactive account and thus burn through hacked accounts slower.
Something to chew on. When hackers steal an account that someone was actively playing, the player would try to get their account back within a day or so. This left little time for the hackers to put the account to full use. When hackers take over inactive accounts, they can get much more use out of those accounts. Weeks or months.
To do what? A gold seller needs about 2 hours to clean an account of all it's assets, send the gold on and then start spamming gold selling messages. How do I know this? Because it was about 2 hours between the time that I got the first e-mail message that my password was changed and the e-mail that said my account had been banned for advertising. It was cleaned out in the meantime.
You ONLY need a hacked account to do something that will get the account banned. Hackers can just go purchase a legit account to farm for gold or whatever else they need to do, they don't need a hacked account for that. Now maybe it saves them a little time by having an account that already may have a lvl 80 toon on it or something, but again they are running the risk that someone will see activity on an inactive account and they will be discovered and the account suspended before they have a chance to do whatever they need to do. You see all the posts here in this thread where the person who's account was compromised didn't notice, but guild members, friends etc suddently see someone online that they thought had quit and they contact the player to ask them when they started playing again and that tips the user off to find out their account has been compromised. The longer they use a compromised account, the more likely the original user will try to get it back and the account will be suspended by Blizzard making that account useless to the hacker.
They are not just risking the user changing the password, they are risking the account being suspended when the true owner calls Blizzard and says their account has been compromised. No, I don't see gold sellers waiting a lot of time to use the account.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong. I'm not a hacker.
Hackers also use accounts to bot farm gold. Not every account is stripped clean, because it all depends on the value of the items and the character. You have never read where someones character was server transferred or leveled up a few levels?
Hackers don't purchase accounts, because that costs money that will just get banned sooner or later? Why do that when they have a readily available stream of characters they can steal for free?
Again, the chances of an inactive player noticing their account is hacked is tiny in comparison to what an active user will notice. Hackers will get far more use out of an inactive account and thus burn through hacked accounts slower.
Ok, you're saying they can't purchase an account, but they can reactivate an inactive account and put an authenticator on the account to do the same thing? I'm sorry, but I don't see how purchasing a new account is more expensive than reactivating an inactive account. They each cost about $14 a month which you have to pay in advance. Unless they have figured out a way to reactivate an inactive account without paying which is a MUCH bigger problem if Blizzard has that problem.
Heck they are probably using a stolen credit card to make the purchase anyway so why should they care how much it costs?
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It is very much Blizzards problem, whenever something like this happens it lessens the value of their game. This happens more than you would think for reasons your little brain cannot comprehend, apparently.
I have a computer that I use specifically for gaming, meaning; I do not browse the internet on it save for the World of Warcraft forums/account management.
My account was hacked back at the start of Lich King, and I was never actually able to get it back. This is after a LOT of time and effort trying to work with Blizzard.
This is indeed Blizzards problem, they need to take better steps to account security/recovery or stuff like this really hurts their reputation (be it the users fault or not).
It is Blizzards job to keep those accounts safe. It doesn't hurt me any if they stop getting my money and the stolen account sells gold or bot mines underground in wintergrasp something, in turn lessening the quality of their game.
I actually remember a case where a Guildie was hacked and his character cleaned out the guild bank and de'd/vendered everything. They spread the gold around to several accounts and Blizzard wasn't able to get it back.
It is a shame indeed; but not just the users. It's also Blizzards shame.
Playing: *sigh* back to WoW
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Waiting for: SW:TOR, APB, WoD
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Played and loved: Eve and WoW
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Played and hated: WoW:WotLK, Warhammer, every single F2P
Yes, it's an influx. Blizzard call centres are 12/5 constantly having an "influx of callers".
No, it's not normally the players' faults in this particular case - I haven't used anything other than QuestHelper that is 3rd party (which, I'll admit, would be a huge hit on any gold farmer's idea to hack accounts).
The email -> battle.net login is stupid - gg Blizzard.
The $6.50 authenticator is just another way of getting Blizzard a bit more of a cash influx - they're starting the nickeling and diming, but I'm just a hopeless lore fag who's waiting, so desperately, for WoW to slowly merge into a gear-based sandbox setting.
Need I mention the potential added future races? Centaur, Harpies, Pandaren, Furbolg, Kobold, etc. etc. etc. etc.
That alone has me drooling like a fanboy, even though it won't happen (in this decade)
Anyway, bleh, whatever - keep on defending Blizzard, they're a fairly good developer as far as good, polished games go - but I'm on the hacked-account players' sides on this one. Someone f'd up bigtime here.
I am playing EVE and it's alright... level V skills are a bit much.
You all need to learn to spell.
Again lets not forget this ALSO inpacts Starcraft and Diablo once they get released sseing as Battlenet is ment to be a 'all-in-one' account, Blizzard need to get their act together with sercuring Battlenet otherwise they aren't just losing WoW sales but ALL their newest products
Bring on the WARRRRGGHH!
Yeah, it's going to be real fun when I get Diablo III and can't play because blizzard's "new and improved b.net" system is screwed over by constant hackings (or inside jobs... *dons tinfoil hat, and continues*)
Imagine how much a currently disgruntled Blizzard employee could make from the right, evil people?
I am playing EVE and it's alright... level V skills are a bit much.
You all need to learn to spell.
So spending 50 cents on a cell phone authenticator is asking too much then ...
This is pure and meaningless trolling.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
So spending 50 cents on a cell phone authenticator is asking too much then ...
This is pure and meaningless trolling.
You DO realise many people hack iphone/touch/phonesmaking the whole sercuity thing pointless? The dongle imo is the only sercure way - but either way no matter what you are buying the players are STILL paying extra to fix a flawed system..
It's only trolling if it's not an issue or pure bull - this IS an issue when even Blizzard can't handle the amount of hacking going on.
Bring on the WARRRRGGHH!
So spending 50 cents on a cell phone authenticator is asking too much then ...
This is pure and meaningless trolling.
the cell phone authenticators are of very limited use, firstly it requires an actual cellphone.. personally i dont see the point of getting one just so i can put an authenticator on it.. but even if you do have one, you might not be in an area where wifi connectivity is available, yet another pointless app imo. if your going to get an authenticator, then your better off getting a proper one.
So spending 50 cents on a cell phone authenticator is asking too much then ...
This is pure and meaningless trolling.
the cell phone authenticators are of very limited use, firstly it requires an actual cellphone.. personally i dont see the point of getting one just so i can put an authenticator on it.. but even if you do have one, you might not be in an area where wifi connectivity is available, yet another pointless app imo. if your going to get an authenticator, then your better off getting a proper one.
A recent study in Germany showed that 95% of ... 11 year olds had a personal mobile phone.
And ... you don't have one.
BTW the cellphone authenticators work the same way as the hardware authenticator.
Wifi ??? So you think the hackers camp around your house anyway...
Conclusion : If your account was hacked and you are too lazy to install an authenticator - as cheap as 50 cents - sorry but the gates are that way ----- >
Every German bank works with an authenticator to do home banking. Blizzard is as vulnerable as a bank these days.
Make your conclusions how SILLY this thread really is: 50 cents of excuses...
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Accounts were hacked before the move to the use of an email address. On a massive scale. I'm still utterly unconvinced that using an email address as ID makes it any less secure than it was before, but I've never been hacked under either system, and I now have an authenticator.
Unfortunately this is never going to be a problem Blizzard can solve.
Blizzard said very clearly from the release of WoW - do not share your account information and do not use powerlevelling services or buy gold.
People ignored that, did what they wanted, and got hacked. Their friend/sister/ex-girlfriend/brother deleted their stuff.
The powerlevelling companies stripped the account after handing it back, because the person paying for the service didn't change their password. I imagine it was a great source of credit card numbers too.
There is nothing that Blizzard can do to prevent a player from making their account details available to someone else, whether deliberately or by accident by reusing passwords/username, using unsecure PCs, using an internet cafe with someone watching over their shoulder, using antivirus which is out of date, not updating Flashplayer etc etc.
Blizzard cannot secure your account.
There are some fantastic conspiracy theories about how all Blizzard wanted to do was leave security holes so they could sell you an authenticator, but how much time and effort do you think it takes one Game Master to put your account back together after it's been hacked? It is in Blizzard's interests to reduce account hacking to zero because of the huge cost in manpower that it takes to deal with that problem.
Blizzard employees don't have access to your password. They don't need it to do their job, which is why they never ask for it. The number of people at Blizzard with sufficiently high security access to the authentication servers to pull that information is going to be minimal, and as I said before, if they're going to commit the kind of fraud that would get them fired and possibly have legal action taken against them, they wouldn't be going for nickel and dime player accounts, but the GM accounts which can create the gold straight up.
The consistent whining about how Blizzard should be responsible for something out of their hands is utterly typical of the way most people refuse to take responsibility for their own stuff. You wouldn't leave your valuable car unlocked in a bad neighbourhood, and then blame the police for not ensuring that it didn't get stolen, or come up with a conspiracy theory about how the police don't arrest people who steal cars cause they're really in on the deal.
If the security of the car matters, lock it, get an alarm or an immobiliser. If the security of the account matters, get an authenticator. Complaining that it really is up to someone else to take responsibility for your decisions is just silly.
I have some 2000 posts to these forums to my name.
I have played WoW since beta and my account has been active the entire time and I'm very much a propoent of the game and have staunchly defended Blizzard and WoW.
I have worked as a mainframe programmer for over 20 years at some of the largest companies in the US including Sprint, MCI, Verizon and Southwest Airlines accessing various databases and sometimes dealing with the security of those databases.
I have been working with PC's since I was 16, some 30 years ago. I have built, upgraded and serviced my own PC's. I have fixed countless numbers of other people's PC's including finding and removing viruses or other malware since the days of DOS. I have coded in HTML and C++. My friends consider me an expert and come to me when their PC is not working.
I have always had an anti-virus package installed on my PC and it's always updated.
I always have the latest updates for Windows installed on my PC.
I do not visit unsecure websites.
I do not fall for phishing e-mails.
I don't give out my password.
I'm aware of most of the most common techniques that hackers use to try to compromise your data.
I have a firewall on my PC that I constantly monitor
I have visited websites that will check to see if my PC is vulnerable to attack and my PC always comes up clean.
And yet my WoW account information WAS compromised in April of this year. After it was compromised I did a full system scan of the only PC that I use to play the game with 2 different Anti-virus packages and nothing was found. I have yet to determine exactly how my account information was compromised.
I understand people's reluctance to believe that it could be a Blizzard problem. In fact I am very reluctant myself to believe that it's a Blizzard problem, however I WON'T rule it out like so many others are attempting to do. Just because it's not probable does not mean it's impossible. Security breaches do happen to even the most secure data in the world if only for a brief period of time, but that is usually all it takes, a very brief time.
It's no skin off my nose if you want to continue to believe that's it's ALL user error. You're probably correct. I just wish you wouldn't force your opinion down other's throats who may not agree or insinuate they don't have a clue about security.
Pappy, since it sounds like you're in the trade I'm sure you're well aware of this, and for anyone who isn't just go find yourself a decent IT related news site and you will see that companies that SHOULD be secure get hacked ALL the time, most of the time people only hear about it when it's a financial company who is required by law to disclose this info to it's customers, and even then it's usually weeks to months later before they do so. I am NOT saying Blizzard/Activision security has ever been compromised, but I am saying it is well within the realm of possibility and they are under no legal obligation to admit it if it ever does happen. From a shareholder perspective it would be best to keep such news as quiet as possible.
In my own case I was responsible for my account being compromised, BUT I am uncomfortable with the amount and type of information other people were able to get out of Blizzard "on my behalf" without my consent or account information details.
To summarize - Do not transfer your account to battle.net or it will get hacked and Blizzard is under no requirement to tell you about it. So there's nothing you can do to get it back.
Varchar, you know that's now what either of us are saying and it's posts like this that undermine what we are trying to say. Posts like this do nothing more than try to throw a bad light on Blizzard. I love Blizzard and I love their products, anyone who's been on this forum for awhile knows that, so please don't use my posts to try to legitimize your own feelings.
Well I still don't understand the logic behind your post. I think it is reasonable to expect companies to keep information safe, and that if they are compromised that they should let customers know about it.
In this case I still think that it's possible Blizzard WAS compromised and they are playing the bullshit "You were hacked" card to everyone that is getting screwed by this.
I am one of these people. I have played this game fairly for 4 fucking years, I never sold an account, never gave a friend my login, never bought gold, but I still get fucked and I'm really upset about it because I have no explanation.
Yes, it's possible. But it's more likely that you where hacked.
I have some 2000 posts to these forums to my name.
I have played WoW since beta and my account has been active the entire time and I'm very much a propoent of the game and have staunchly defended Blizzard and WoW.
I have worked as a mainframe programmer for over 20 years at some of the largest companies in the US including Sprint, MCI, Verizon and Southwest Airlines accessing various databases and sometimes dealing with the security of those databases.
I have been working with PC's since I was 16, some 30 years ago. I have built, upgraded and serviced my own PC's. I have fixed countless numbers of other people's PC's including finding and removing viruses or other malware since the days of DOS. I have coded in HTML and C++. My friends consider me an expert and come to me when their PC is not working.
I have always had an anti-virus package installed on my PC and it's always updated.
I always have the latest updates for Windows installed on my PC.
I do not visit unsecure websites.
I do not fall for phishing e-mails.
I don't give out my password.
I'm aware of most of the most common techniques that hackers use to try to compromise your data.
I have a firewall on my PC that I constantly monitor
I have visited websites that will check to see if my PC is vulnerable to attack and my PC always comes up clean.
And yet my WoW account information WAS compromised in April of this year. After it was compromised I did a full system scan of the only PC that I use to play the game with 2 different Anti-virus packages and nothing was found. I have yet to determine exactly how my account information was compromised.
I understand people's reluctance to believe that it could be a Blizzard problem. In fact I am very reluctant myself to believe that it's a Blizzard problem, however I WON'T rule it out like so many others are attempting to do. Just because it's not probable does not mean it's impossible. Security breaches do happen to even the most secure data in the world if only for a brief period of time, but that is usually all it takes, a very brief time.
It's no skin off my nose if you want to continue to believe that's it's ALL user error. You're probably correct. I just wish you wouldn't force your opinion down other's throats who may not agree or insinuate they don't have a clue about security.
Pappy, since it sounds like you're in the trade I'm sure you're well aware of this, and for anyone who isn't just go find yourself a decent IT related news site and you will see that companies that SHOULD be secure get hacked ALL the time, most of the time people only hear about it when it's a financial company who is required by law to disclose this info to it's customers, and even then it's usually weeks to months later before they do so. I am NOT saying Blizzard/Activision security has ever been compromised, but I am saying it is well within the realm of possibility and they are under no legal obligation to admit it if it ever does happen. From a shareholder perspective it would be best to keep such news as quiet as possible.
In my own case I was responsible for my account being compromised, BUT I am uncomfortable with the amount and type of information other people were able to get out of Blizzard "on my behalf" without my consent or account information details.
To summarize - Do not transfer your account to battle.net or it will get hacked and Blizzard is under no requirement to tell you about it. So there's nothing you can do to get it back.
Varchar, you know that's now what either of us are saying and it's posts like this that undermine what we are trying to say. Posts like this do nothing more than try to throw a bad light on Blizzard. I love Blizzard and I love their products, anyone who's been on this forum for awhile knows that, so please don't use my posts to try to legitimize your own feelings.
Well I still don't understand the logic behind your post. I think it is reasonable to expect companies to keep information safe, and that if they are compromised that they should let customers know about it.
In this case I still think that it's possible Blizzard WAS compromised and they are playing the bullshit "You were hacked" card to everyone that is getting screwed by this.
I am one of these people. I have played this game fairly for 4 fucking years, I never sold an account, never gave a friend my login, never bought gold, but I still get fucked and I'm really upset about it because I have no explanation.
Yes, it's possible. But it's more likely that you where hacked.
More than possible, entirely probable in fact, although might not have bought gold, or given your login to a friend, have you ever used the game add-ons, and did you virus check them before installing them? also, do you use the same password on any other game, forum, email account. responded to an email claiming to be from Blizzard etc.. the number of ways in which you may have been hacked, are, well, numerous, and unless your skilled in IP etc, you probably wouldnt know about it until the deed is perpetrated etc. just as a baseline, everyone should have installed on their computer, a decent firewall (not windows homebrand.. epic fail) anti virus, and antispyware/malware software, though with some of the paid antivirus programs you get that as well, but for the freebies, its usually not present. and then you need to run those programs at least once a week... but, i suspect that even that wouldnt have protected you entirely, as most of the hacked accounts are probably the result of phishing..
yeah, I used to get like 5 of those a day. Email filter ftw
Now they have started sending similar emails for Aion btw! lol
I have not played my Aion account in about 6 months and I got one of these yesterday after work hours. I knew it was a fake because my work place PC has very tight security which told me it was a scam.... but I knew it anyway.
They don't have my model of Blackberry yet or else I would have grabbed one already. Last time I checked it was 99 cents which is well worth it if they only had my model available.
Just to make sure false information doesn't keep getting repeated.
Addons are 100% safe. They cannot hack your password or login information. It is impossible. As long as you only extract the files you are 100% safe. Addons do not even load until after you have logged into the game, so they cannot scan your account information.
If the addon you download has an installer, then you are not getting an addon, but rather a 3rd party program. Addons should never ever need an installer, .exe, .bat or any other form of executable file to work. Any addon that asks the user to go through special installation instructions should be treated as a virus, no matter how popular the mod is. Every addon site warns against addons that request the user to take special installation instruction. Buyer beware if you will.
They don't have my model of Blackberry yet or else I would have grabbed one already. Last time I checked it was 99 cents which is well worth it if they only had my model available.
plus got to take into account what happens when you get a new phone the following year.. seeing as people tend to get new ones every year practically. ..
I did get my account restored, but it does not change the fact that it should not have been compromised in the first place. They sent me the bullshit email giving me security tips, like the whole thing was my fault, what a fucking SCAM!
So it seems if you need your account restored you should probably call them now, because I'm sure they are restoring every damn person that calls in just wanting this shit to go away as quick as possible.
SO IF YOU WANT YOUR ACCOUNT RESTORED, FOR WHATEVER REASON, NOW IS THE TIME TO CALL!
My account was permanently banned and I have not played the game in 2 years. I think someone hacked inside of blizzard's systems or something. Why would they ban me for gold selling even if someone hacked it as they can't even log in?
There's a couple problems with this theory. First it assumes that the user is not going to change the password in the meantime. The longer the account is left alone the more likely the user could change the password. This is especially true of inactive accounts because there's a good possibility that the user will return to the game and won't remember the password after not having played for awhile and will have to reset the password and then the account information would have to be compromised again. I can see hackers leaving a compromised account alone for maybe a week or 2 or perhaps even a month or so, but a year or 2 or 3? Highly unlikely. And we are seeing more of that lately.
Plus it only makes sense to keep the account on hold like that if you want to use the account for gold selling. To spam gold selling messages there's no reason to wait, that can be done immediately.
Yeah, blizzard is putting their users through hell for what reason?
I hope you don't say it is to sell them something that costs $6, has to be manufactured, packaged and shipped. Something tells me there isn't a lot of profit in that.
If blizzard wanted to simply make money they would just make another virtual pet and make far more without the hassle of pissing their customers off.
Did you click the link in the email that said you were banned and go to the blizzard website?
Did you try to log into your account to see if it was banned?
There's a couple problems with this theory. First it assumes that the user is not going to change the password in the meantime. The longer the account is left alone the more likely the user could change the password. This is especially true of inactive accounts because there's a good possibility that the user will return to the game and won't remember the password after not having played for awhile and will have to reset the password and then the account information would have to be compromised again. I can see hackers leaving a compromised account alone for maybe a week or 2 or perhaps even a month or so, but a year or 2 or 3? Highly unlikely. And we are seeing more of that lately.
Plus it only makes sense to keep the account on hold like that if you want to use the account for gold selling. To spam gold selling messages there's no reason to wait, that can be done immediately.
Something to chew on.
When hackers steal an account that someone was actively playing, the player would try to get their account back within a day or so. This left little time for the hackers to put the account to full use.
When hackers take over inactive accounts, they can get much more use out of those accounts. Weeks or months.
This reduces the over churn that hackers will go through with accounts. The longer they have access to the account, the less they need to hack. The more they hack, the more they have in reserve. The few people who do reset their password is trivial in comparison to the number of accounts they lost access to when an active player is using the account.
TLDR version
Longer access to accounts means hackers burn through less hacked accounts and can stockpile hacked account information for future use.
For all we know the change to battlenet has increased blizzards ability to spot hackers and they are banning them quicker which is forcing hackers to use up their saved hacked accounts.
This statement speaks very loudly. Even if Blizzard isnt to blame, which im not so sure, its a pretty good pay day for them.
Now subtract what it cost to have those designed and programmed. Add in the back end server infrastructure required to support them, and what it costs to have them manufactured, shipped out to Blizzards store locations, and the personnel to deal with them, and their delivery. I'm betting that what remains is a MUCH less impressive figure, if its positive at all. But thats irrelevant. Blizzards success(more than 11 million players) and the market for gold/accounts is what attracted the hackers. The practical solution is to lock down accounts with authenticators. Blizzard should ideally offer one to everyone. But they are a corporation, and suits seldom come up with such simple solutions.
If they are making $1 a piece its still a good pay day for Blizzard and please dont tell me they are doing it at cost or losing money. I may not be as smart of some of you folks explaining how its all the players faults but I do know a bit about how a business operates and losing money or even breaking even isnt in the picture.
To do what? A gold seller needs about 2 hours to clean an account of all it's assets, send the gold on and then start spamming gold selling messages. How do I know this? Because it was about 2 hours between the time that I got the first e-mail message that my password was changed and the e-mail that said my account had been banned for advertising. It was cleaned out in the meantime.
You ONLY need a hacked account to do something that will get the account banned. Hackers can just go purchase a legit account to farm for gold or whatever else they need to do, they don't need a hacked account for that. Now maybe it saves them a little time by having an account that already may have a lvl 80 toon on it or something, but again they are running the risk that someone will see activity on an inactive account and they will be discovered and the account suspended before they have a chance to do whatever they need to do. You see all the posts here in this thread where the person who's account was compromised didn't notice, but guild members, friends etc suddently see someone online that they thought had quit and they contact the player to ask them when they started playing again and that tips the user off to find out their account has been compromised. The longer they use a compromised account, the more likely the original user will try to get it back and the account will be suspended by Blizzard making that account useless to the hacker.
They are not just risking the user changing the password, they are risking the account being suspended when the true owner calls Blizzard and says their account has been compromised. No, I don't see gold sellers waiting a lot of time to use the account.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong. I'm not a hacker.
To do what? A gold seller needs about 2 hours to clean an account of all it's assets, send the gold on and then start spamming gold selling messages. How do I know this? Because it was about 2 hours between the time that I got the first e-mail message that my password was changed and the e-mail that said my account had been banned for advertising. It was cleaned out in the meantime.
You ONLY need a hacked account to do something that will get the account banned. Hackers can just go purchase a legit account to farm for gold or whatever else they need to do, they don't need a hacked account for that. Now maybe it saves them a little time by having an account that already may have a lvl 80 toon on it or something, but again they are running the risk that someone will see activity on an inactive account and they will be discovered and the account suspended before they have a chance to do whatever they need to do. You see all the posts here in this thread where the person who's account was compromised didn't notice, but guild members, friends etc suddently see someone online that they thought had quit and they contact the player to ask them when they started playing again and that tips the user off to find out their account has been compromised. The longer they use a compromised account, the more likely the original user will try to get it back and the account will be suspended by Blizzard making that account useless to the hacker.
They are not just risking the user changing the password, they are risking the account being suspended when the true owner calls Blizzard and says their account has been compromised. No, I don't see gold sellers waiting a lot of time to use the account.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong. I'm not a hacker.
Hackers also use accounts to bot farm gold. Not every account is stripped clean, because it all depends on the value of the items and the character. You have never read where someones character was server transferred or leveled up a few levels?
Hackers don't purchase accounts, because that costs money that will just get banned sooner or later? Why do that when they have a readily available stream of characters they can steal for free?
Again, the chances of an inactive player noticing their account is hacked is tiny in comparison to what an active user will notice. Hackers will get far more use out of an inactive account and thus burn through hacked accounts slower.
To do what? A gold seller needs about 2 hours to clean an account of all it's assets, send the gold on and then start spamming gold selling messages. How do I know this? Because it was about 2 hours between the time that I got the first e-mail message that my password was changed and the e-mail that said my account had been banned for advertising. It was cleaned out in the meantime.
You ONLY need a hacked account to do something that will get the account banned. Hackers can just go purchase a legit account to farm for gold or whatever else they need to do, they don't need a hacked account for that. Now maybe it saves them a little time by having an account that already may have a lvl 80 toon on it or something, but again they are running the risk that someone will see activity on an inactive account and they will be discovered and the account suspended before they have a chance to do whatever they need to do. You see all the posts here in this thread where the person who's account was compromised didn't notice, but guild members, friends etc suddently see someone online that they thought had quit and they contact the player to ask them when they started playing again and that tips the user off to find out their account has been compromised. The longer they use a compromised account, the more likely the original user will try to get it back and the account will be suspended by Blizzard making that account useless to the hacker.
They are not just risking the user changing the password, they are risking the account being suspended when the true owner calls Blizzard and says their account has been compromised. No, I don't see gold sellers waiting a lot of time to use the account.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong. I'm not a hacker.
Hackers also use accounts to bot farm gold. Not every account is stripped clean, because it all depends on the value of the items and the character. You have never read where someones character was server transferred or leveled up a few levels?
Hackers don't purchase accounts, because that costs money that will just get banned sooner or later? Why do that when they have a readily available stream of characters they can steal for free?
Again, the chances of an inactive player noticing their account is hacked is tiny in comparison to what an active user will notice. Hackers will get far more use out of an inactive account and thus burn through hacked accounts slower.
Ok, you're saying they can't purchase an account, but they can reactivate an inactive account and put an authenticator on the account to do the same thing? I'm sorry, but I don't see how purchasing a new account is more expensive than reactivating an inactive account. They each cost about $14 a month which you have to pay in advance. Unless they have figured out a way to reactivate an inactive account without paying which is a MUCH bigger problem if Blizzard has that problem.
Heck they are probably using a stolen credit card to make the purchase anyway so why should they care how much it costs?