yep old system was better now player have to create a separate e-mail account just because of this bull !lot of wow player left because of this since it make it a lot easier to reach your e-mail when you have to search for a name and password its a lot harder then like now when you have to only search for password since all e-mail name are avail online. wow was more secure before!
It seems most of the "hacked" accounts have either been through phishing scams (which I've received several that look very legit but were not) or from key loggers...Curse.com even had a problem for a while when their site was hacked and IE users who came to their site also ended up with problems. Reports say that this did not happen to those that used OPERA or a different 3rd party Web Browser.
On Saturday evening people started contacting me over MSN and asking if I started playing again etc. I was confused and said no, then they said that my main char is logged in and I said that can't be. I know about 5 days a go I checked armory since I saw they did an update and there was my char - just as I left it, specless in newb tanking gear etc. I checked again and now he was arms and apparently was farming stuff. I tried to log in on account and here was a shocker - I needed authenticator, but I never ever ever used that crap. Oh, and my account has been inactive for over half a year now which really makes it strange - how the HELL did they get my un and pw?! I was sure this can never happen to me but somehow it did... been playing WoW on and off for couple of years and I'm well computer educated and I didn't have a virus in last 5 years so how they pulled this off is beyond me. So today I get an email saying this: Account Name: xxxxx
Type of Violation: Involvement in online trading activities
Investigation Concluded: 25/01/2010
Consequences for Account: Account Cancellation And simple as that MY account has been cancelled for things I DID NOT DO. And thing that pissed me off the most: Account access is the responsibility of the account owner and account sharing is against our Terms of Use (http://www.wow-europe.com/en/legal/termsofuse.html). Therefore, should you believe someone other than yourself (the account owner) has committed this violation of the Terms of Use with your account, these sanctions would still apply, as our action is taken against the account, not the individual. Soooooo I got hacked somehow and now they will punish the victim? What kind of a horsecrap is this?! That account means a lot to me god dammit and I was saving it for next expansion. Loads of time, money and effort went in to it...
You have to keep pushing for restoration of your account.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site : http://mmodata.blogspot.be/ Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
Now lets look at it from another angle, if certain hackers really have a way to brute force hack Blizzards servers, then there would be alot more people compromised, to the point where Blizzard would just cut off the servers in order to fix it.
I wonder how many people here use gmail for their WoW account ...
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site : http://mmodata.blogspot.be/ Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
When I switched to a bnet account, I didn't get hacked. Oh yeah I have an authenticator
Hackers can get to your account through your email account. They can update your Bnet password through this, and remove any suspicious "confirmation emails". Use a secure password for your email account, and watch for "alternate addresses" in your email options to make sure those addresses only belong to you. Yes, sometimes it's deep in the mailbox configuration.
Using Firefox is also less risky than Internet Explorer...
It was a few years back before battlenet, but I stopped playing at one point then 4 months later got and email telling me that my account was banned for rmt activities. I just brushed it off since I wasn't playing and my credit card was not being charged. Almost a year later I got the inkling to play again and had to go through a lot of red tape because apparently my account WAS compromised and they actually did ban the account.
Odd thing was when I got my account back I went on and found about 12 level 1 characters on 12 different servers (one of them even being a guild owner) , but all my characters were still there. And much to my surprise all my characters were still there and all of them still had their equipment and gold. Also a character that I had made on my first day ever playing that magically disappeared was back. All those hours with tech support to get that toon back and it took an rmt to work their magic.
I've been hacked myself since the b-net transfer, theres two core issues here, the phishing scams, and the big fact your login is now your email address, one of the easiest things to find these days, with facebook and everything these days it's damn easy to find you details and with the logins being emails, it's not exactally hard to get into your accounts with that..
It doesn't help that much when changing your passwords and putting on the authenicator itself ONLY requires you login and basic details and YET actally reporting the theift of the account requires a LOT more info according to the offical support page from blizzard.. plus the fact with the Armoury blizzard basically advertise your characters to the sellers and they mainly target the gatherer trades so they can teleport mine the game and kill any guildbanks they find - at least SOE and Turbine gave you the OPTION to show your account data.
The only true sercure way to stop the hackers WITHOUT the authenicator is use a COMPLETELY different email to everything you use elsewhere and change your password every day, this is what happens when you make a system idiot proof, having a username was far more sercure then, plus remember this wont be limited to WoW, but D3 and SC2 as well...
Battle-net V2 has flaws and they ARE being explioted, sadly the winners here are the gold sellers and Blizzard unless you have a ipod touch/phone your paying THEM £15 to fix that system with the authenicator, it's not right but theres very little we can do about it if we want to play any Blizzard game using the system.
I got hacked shortly after I switched to Battle-Net also. I'm an InfoSec major, my home network is locked down tight (nothing is unhackable of course, but I know what I'm doing) and to this day I still have no idea how my account was compromised. An Authenticator was also attached to it, and unlike some, my gear and gold was all taken. I got it back (Blizzard has always taken good care of me), but the fact that with my rather extensive skills I'm unable to determine how my information was obtained really bothers me.
best bet is to no play wow! using e-mail as an id is stupid plain and simple i could understand if it was made like this id (like it was before) pasword then once you enter you would have met the e-mail request page from blizzard that would have made the game more secure but the way it is right now is completetly unsecure.
Share with us how using an email address exposes your account?
Do you run around the internet posting your log in name? Then why would you run around the internet posting your login email address?
My account was hacked when I hadn't played for a year or so. I got more stuff back from Blizzard than I had before they hacked it and on top of that whoever did the hacking reactivated the account and has been paying for it for two months.
Too bad I can't bring myself to play this game much anymore. Played it too long and the direction that the game is going isn't something that I agree with.
It's gotten to the point where some MMOs have been reduced to little more than success dispensers. Don't think. Don't challenge yourself. Do as little as possible... but still be rewarded for it. Yeah.. *that's* fun.
I got hacked shortly after I switched to Battle-Net also. I'm an InfoSec major, my home network is locked down tight (nothing is unhackable of course, but I know what I'm doing) and to this day I still have no idea how my account was compromised. An Authenticator was also attached to it, and unlike some, my gear and gold was all taken. I got it back (Blizzard has always taken good care of me), but the fact that with my rather extensive skills I'm unable to determine how my information was obtained really bothers me.
Yea, I know what you mean, It bothers me as well. As I've said a few times now about my account, it was closed for 3 years. I had 3 different computers in that time frame. I do daily scans for spyware and malware and have a rather secure pc, i've been building computers for years and I work in network and internet security, so I know a bit about what i am doing and how to protect my pc. I never use the same ID or password twice, and my passwords are a random mix of numbers and letters with caps. When WoW switched over to BNET i made a dummy email just for it, using a totally different password than the wow account. I never logged in with those in the 3 years my account was inactive, nor did I open any kind of emails from blizzard (i never got any from them that whole time to open) and I never went to any WoW related sites. Yet the night I reactive my account and play for a few hours, I get hacked. Everyone is saying Keylogger, yet scans before the hack and scans after are all clean. If there was a keylogger on then it should have still been there, and I really doubt its hidden itself that well.
I've never been hacked before in the 12 years I have played MMOs until it happened on WoW. I am not pointing fingers or blaming Blizzard for it, I just hope they take more notice and look into it a little deeper.
lol same here, i havent played wow since right after wotlk came out, lvled to 80 then quit cause of he easymode, and now my friends are saying my char is online. i sendt a mail to blizz explaining the situation, the guy who hacked my acc even uses a blizz authencatior, they just did a password recovery and i still cant get on my acc now cause it still has the autnecatior attached to it, but fuck it, i dont play wow so not gonna waste time with blizzard getting it back.
I've had my account hacked twice now, both times when my account was inactive for 6+ months. The first time I had bought a new computer and didn't even have WoW installed on it! Now how is it that Battle.net is secure?
Switching from user name system to email based was such a stupid move. So much easier to get the email address than some random user name. I have to wonder if blizz wants accounts lost to sell authenticators.
Honestly, the number of recent accounts that have been hacked in WoW has been incredibly high. I personally had mine hacked in December, and I know 12 people who have had their WoW accounts hacked over the last 5 months. I can pretty much guarantee that most of them (not all are people I know well) are legit players who don't use any PL service or RMT, they don't use any third party add-ons or even interface mods so they aren't going to third party sites, and they are not stupid enough to give out their account information either. As for my account, I've had it since November 24th 2004. I canceled it in 2006. I decided to come back and start playing with a few RL friends in December. I reopened it and played for a day no problems. They very next day I go to get on the game and at the login screen after I enter my password and hit enter, get a message saying my account had been compromised and Blizzard had locked it down to help me regain control over it. It took me over 3 hours of calling them to get an answer, because their service line for account recovery had a message saying they had a large volume of calls and could not take any more, and requested me to call back later and hung up on me. When I finally got a person they were able to verify someone else did indeed access my account the night after I reactivated it, and it took them about 40 minutes to get everything settled and returned to me. The person I spoke to said I had to have gone to a third party site and gotten a key logger on my computer. They wouldn't believe me when I insisted I had ONLY been to the account management page to reactivate my account, and hadn't been to any other WoW related sites in MONTHS, maybe even Years. They even had me run a virus scan, which I did, and it came up clean. They then said I must have given my information out, which I hadn't done, I have no one to give it to or any reason to give it out in the first place, and I definitely didn't go to any RMT or PL service sites at all or ever. And no, I never got any kind of scamming email asking me to click a link to reset my password, or any other email from blizzard in over a year aside from when i canceled it in 2006, and when I reactivated and got the confirmation in december. I told them about my concern over my account safety, and about the fact that I knew many people who had their accounts hacked recently, and the service rep even confirmed that they did indeed have a rising number of cases of compromised accounts popping up, but insisted I shouldn't worry that they were on top of things and ended the call with me. That didn't make me feel very good. I've gone to a few forums and seen many people making similar complaints. I've noticed about 75% of these recent hacking cases seem to happen to people who are just reactivating their accounts for whatever reason. The really strange thing about my account hack is that they didnt strip any of my characters. I had several in the 50s and at 60, plenty of money and gear and full banks, all left alone. They just made 5 random characters with random names on several servers, I am assuming to spam chat with.
I agree. Same thing happen to me.
Somehow Hacker got to my Email and WoW account.
Problem I had with all this, is the myth that Hackers get to your Account by use of Keyloggers and RMT sites.
Like you said, I dont use any MODS nor Third Party Computer programs on computer.
Plus I had quit WoW a week before (THE DUAL SPEC PATcH, WHICH EVER THAT WAS) which was months ago.
I had Never been Hacked before then. (THIS PERRIOD WHEN I QUIT ALSO HAPPENS TO BE BEFORE BATTLE NET MERGE)
so some how the hacker hacked me between the Dual Spec patch and November.
I never got Real nor Fake WoW emails. So How could I click a Spam Email if I never get WoW related Emails? Dont Make Sence.
Plus My WoW password had no connection what so ever to any PW i use for anything else.
Also my Secret Question was so random, it immposable logocaily to figure out.
So I dont understand how the Hacker got to my info (even with keylogger, since I never use my WoW info[PW/userName] anywhere other then WoW, which I had quit months back)
I found out that the Hacker somehow got to my Email account. I busted them when my WoW account password was switched after second hacked, and the Blizzard email I got was pre -open before I open up my Email.
Even if the hacker hacked my Email, how did they get into my WoW account info?
My account has been deactivated for well over a year now, and all of a sudden I start getting these emails about my account password being changed ect.. So somehow these hackers got my email address. After opening one and seeing who it was actually from it got deleted and my computer promptly got scanned. do not even go to Blizzards site anymore. Havent since I last played.
Guess Blizzard has a shit storm on their hands. Leave it to good ol Blizzard.....
Hackers get email addresses from scanning gaming forums, blogs, etc. It doesn't matter how long ago the email address was posted or how long ago your account was canceled. It is just a phishing attempt.
I get plenty of fake blizzard emails sent to email accounts that I have only used to register with on forums and are in no way associated with any of my gaming accounts.
My account has been deactivated for well over a year now, and all of a sudden I start getting these emails about my account password being changed ect.. So somehow these hackers got my email address. After opening one and seeing who it was actually from it got deleted and my computer promptly got scanned. do not even go to Blizzards site anymore. Havent since I last played.
Guess Blizzard has a shit storm on their hands. Leave it to good ol Blizzard.....
There's more involved here than just Blizzard I think. I see a lot of people saying that their e-mail password was compromised as well. If they got your e-mail password and it's linked to your WoW user-id, then you're hacked because all they have to do is reset the password and Blizzard e-mails you a new one, which they can now read. My buddy had his Yahoo e-mail compromised which happened to be his WoW e-mail address and bingo, hacked account. How they got his Yahoo e-mail password is a mystery. I don't know what is going on, but something is not right and it's not just Blizzard being affected.
many people use the EXACT same login for 10 sites. It's a lot easier for some noname website to have their information taken/ "lost"/sold to someone who can than access your wow account because of that.
This thread just re-assures me that getting authenticators for all of our family Blizzard accounts was a very good idea. I did this especially since we were leaving the game, either temporarily or possibly permanently....we don't know yet. Regardless, we've all invested tons of time over the past 5 years, and I wanted to protect that investment, even if we weren't going to be playing.
I know it seems kind of nuts to have to invest $6.50 per account (for 3 accounts) that we're not using...but it just seemed a small price to pay for some peace of mind during our absence, regardless of how long that absence might continue. We MAY want to return for Cataclysm. We've not decided for sure yet, so....yeah, I'm glad we did this.
I guess we'll find out if the authenticators were a worthwhile investment, if and when we play again. But...at least I know we've done everything we can to protect the accounts, and I would think, that when it comes to returning stuff IF you get hacked...that Blizzard would consider that. I don't know though....it hasn't happened yet. I hope I don't have to go through the hassle of ever finding out on that one. heh
My account was hacked the very day that Battle.net became mandatory.
The problem, IMO, isn't a simple email (cause I don't have frivoulous email), it wasn't some keylogger, cause I don't DL from anywhere except DVD's and nothing new was added to my computer, as well. If I were a hacker, which I'm not, the target wouldn't be 8 million subscribers... that's insanely stupid.... I would target the bottleneck -Battle.net.
The odds of account hacks rising because of a mandatory change is forseeable, especially when there is one single point of entry. Lets assume that Yahoo.com or Gmail.com were the target of this hacking tool. I could then say that a small percentage of players would have been hacked. If the hackers targetted all major online email providers, the number would rise again, but not to the level I have seen. Ok... now lets add all the major internet provider email servers... hmmm, thats a nice number (about 375 more hacking points)... surely that would bring the amount of hacks above a brow raise.
But... given that information, wouldn't it be easier to target the one point that all of the 8 million+ subs use? I'm not saying that Battle.net was hacked, but anyone with a good tool (sniff sniff) could eventually find a way to tap into private information streams -especially when emails, in general, have no security against good hacking tools.
My hacker was quite amusing...
Took all my gold, made me purchase tons of mining gems, sold my Tier armor, and logged me off 2000 yards above ground... when I logged on, I fell, died and was in the middle of nowhere. They sent me a small pet from a game account (Im assuming was also hacked) from a user named FKYUM8... I had to laugh.
Blizzard took two weeks giving me back what ever they wanted or thought I had (horrible experience there)... minus my gold.
This thread just re-assures me that getting authenticators for all of our family Blizzard accounts was a very good idea. I did this especially since we were leaving the game, either temporarily or possibly permanently....we don't know yet. Regardless, we've all invested tons of time over the past 5 years, and I wanted to protect that investment, even if we weren't going to be playing.
I know it seems kind of nuts to have to invest $6.50 per account (for 3 accounts) that we're not using...but it just seemed a small price to pay for some peace of mind during our absence, regardless of how long that absence might continue. We MAY want to return for Cataclysm. We've not decided for sure yet, so....yeah, I'm glad we did this.
I guess we'll find out if the authenticators were a worthwhile investment, if and when we play again. But...at least I know we've done everything we can to protect the accounts, and I would think, that when it comes to returning stuff IF you get hacked...that Blizzard would consider that. I don't know though....it hasn't happened yet. I hope I don't have to go through the hassle of ever finding out on that one. heh
I may be wrong, but I think you can link multiple accounts to one authenticator
Comments
when you have to search for a name and password its a lot harder then like now when you have to only search for password since all e-mail name are avail online.
wow was more secure before!
It seems most of the "hacked" accounts have either been through phishing scams (which I've received several that look very legit but were not) or from key loggers...Curse.com even had a problem for a while when their site was hacked and IE users who came to their site also ended up with problems. Reports say that this did not happen to those that used OPERA or a different 3rd party Web Browser.
You have to keep pushing for restoration of your account.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site :
http://mmodata.blogspot.be/
Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
Now lets look at it from another angle, if certain hackers really have a way to brute force hack Blizzards servers, then there would be alot more people compromised, to the point where Blizzard would just cut off the servers in order to fix it.
I wonder how many people here use gmail for their WoW account ...
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site :
http://mmodata.blogspot.be/
Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
Oh, and my bnet account was also linked to gmail, but I knew nothing of gmail being hacked?
When I switched to a bnet account, I didn't get hacked. Oh yeah I have an authenticator
Hackers can get to your account through your email account. They can update your Bnet password through this, and remove any suspicious "confirmation emails". Use a secure password for your email account, and watch for "alternate addresses" in your email options to make sure those addresses only belong to you. Yes, sometimes it's deep in the mailbox configuration.
Using Firefox is also less risky than Internet Explorer...
It was a few years back before battlenet, but I stopped playing at one point then 4 months later got and email telling me that my account was banned for rmt activities. I just brushed it off since I wasn't playing and my credit card was not being charged. Almost a year later I got the inkling to play again and had to go through a lot of red tape because apparently my account WAS compromised and they actually did ban the account.
Odd thing was when I got my account back I went on and found about 12 level 1 characters on 12 different servers (one of them even being a guild owner) , but all my characters were still there. And much to my surprise all my characters were still there and all of them still had their equipment and gold. Also a character that I had made on my first day ever playing that magically disappeared was back. All those hours with tech support to get that toon back and it took an rmt to work their magic.
I've been hacked myself since the b-net transfer, theres two core issues here, the phishing scams, and the big fact your login is now your email address, one of the easiest things to find these days, with facebook and everything these days it's damn easy to find you details and with the logins being emails, it's not exactally hard to get into your accounts with that..
It doesn't help that much when changing your passwords and putting on the authenicator itself ONLY requires you login and basic details and YET actally reporting the theift of the account requires a LOT more info according to the offical support page from blizzard.. plus the fact with the Armoury blizzard basically advertise your characters to the sellers and they mainly target the gatherer trades so they can teleport mine the game and kill any guildbanks they find - at least SOE and Turbine gave you the OPTION to show your account data.
The only true sercure way to stop the hackers WITHOUT the authenicator is use a COMPLETELY different email to everything you use elsewhere and change your password every day, this is what happens when you make a system idiot proof, having a username was far more sercure then, plus remember this wont be limited to WoW, but D3 and SC2 as well...
Battle-net V2 has flaws and they ARE being explioted, sadly the winners here are the gold sellers and Blizzard unless you have a ipod touch/phone your paying THEM £15 to fix that system with the authenicator, it's not right but theres very little we can do about it if we want to play any Blizzard game using the system.
Bring on the WARRRRGGHH!
I got hacked shortly after I switched to Battle-Net also. I'm an InfoSec major, my home network is locked down tight (nothing is unhackable of course, but I know what I'm doing) and to this day I still have no idea how my account was compromised. An Authenticator was also attached to it, and unlike some, my gear and gold was all taken. I got it back (Blizzard has always taken good care of me), but the fact that with my rather extensive skills I'm unable to determine how my information was obtained really bothers me.
using e-mail as an id is stupid plain and simple
i could understand if it was made like this
id (like it was before)
pasword
then once you enter you would have met the e-mail request page from blizzard
that would have made the game more secure
but the way it is right now is completetly unsecure.
Share with us how using an email address exposes your account?
Do you run around the internet posting your log in name? Then why would you run around the internet posting your login email address?
My account was hacked when I hadn't played for a year or so. I got more stuff back from Blizzard than I had before they hacked it and on top of that whoever did the hacking reactivated the account and has been paying for it for two months.
Too bad I can't bring myself to play this game much anymore. Played it too long and the direction that the game is going isn't something that I agree with.
It's gotten to the point where some MMOs have been reduced to little more than success dispensers. Don't think. Don't challenge yourself. Do as little as possible... but still be rewarded for it. Yeah.. *that's* fun.
-- WSIMike
Yea, I know what you mean, It bothers me as well. As I've said a few times now about my account, it was closed for 3 years. I had 3 different computers in that time frame. I do daily scans for spyware and malware and have a rather secure pc, i've been building computers for years and I work in network and internet security, so I know a bit about what i am doing and how to protect my pc. I never use the same ID or password twice, and my passwords are a random mix of numbers and letters with caps. When WoW switched over to BNET i made a dummy email just for it, using a totally different password than the wow account. I never logged in with those in the 3 years my account was inactive, nor did I open any kind of emails from blizzard (i never got any from them that whole time to open) and I never went to any WoW related sites. Yet the night I reactive my account and play for a few hours, I get hacked. Everyone is saying Keylogger, yet scans before the hack and scans after are all clean. If there was a keylogger on then it should have still been there, and I really doubt its hidden itself that well.
I've never been hacked before in the 12 years I have played MMOs until it happened on WoW. I am not pointing fingers or blaming Blizzard for it, I just hope they take more notice and look into it a little deeper.
lol same here, i havent played wow since right after wotlk came out, lvled to 80 then quit cause of he easymode, and now my friends are saying my char is online. i sendt a mail to blizz explaining the situation, the guy who hacked my acc even uses a blizz authencatior, they just did a password recovery and i still cant get on my acc now cause it still has the autnecatior attached to it, but fuck it, i dont play wow so not gonna waste time with blizzard getting it back.
Currently Playing Path of Exile
I've had my account hacked twice now, both times when my account was inactive for 6+ months. The first time I had bought a new computer and didn't even have WoW installed on it! Now how is it that Battle.net is secure?
I agree. Same thing happen to me.
Somehow Hacker got to my Email and WoW account.
Problem I had with all this, is the myth that Hackers get to your Account by use of Keyloggers and RMT sites.
Like you said, I dont use any MODS nor Third Party Computer programs on computer.
Plus I had quit WoW a week before (THE DUAL SPEC PATcH, WHICH EVER THAT WAS) which was months ago.
I had Never been Hacked before then. (THIS PERRIOD WHEN I QUIT ALSO HAPPENS TO BE BEFORE BATTLE NET MERGE)
so some how the hacker hacked me between the Dual Spec patch and November.
I never got Real nor Fake WoW emails. So How could I click a Spam Email if I never get WoW related Emails? Dont Make Sence.
Plus My WoW password had no connection what so ever to any PW i use for anything else.
Also my Secret Question was so random, it immposable logocaily to figure out.
So I dont understand how the Hacker got to my info (even with keylogger, since I never use my WoW info[PW/userName] anywhere other then WoW, which I had quit months back)
I found out that the Hacker somehow got to my Email account. I busted them when my WoW account password was switched after second hacked, and the Blizzard email I got was pre -open before I open up my Email.
Even if the hacker hacked my Email, how did they get into my WoW account info?
My account has been deactivated for well over a year now, and all of a sudden I start getting these emails about my account password being changed ect.. So somehow these hackers got my email address. After opening one and seeing who it was actually from it got deleted and my computer promptly got scanned. do not even go to Blizzards site anymore. Havent since I last played.
Guess Blizzard has a shit storm on their hands. Leave it to good ol Blizzard.....
----------------------------
Omol da'Ox
Hackers get email addresses from scanning gaming forums, blogs, etc. It doesn't matter how long ago the email address was posted or how long ago your account was canceled. It is just a phishing attempt.
I get plenty of fake blizzard emails sent to email accounts that I have only used to register with on forums and are in no way associated with any of my gaming accounts.
There's more involved here than just Blizzard I think. I see a lot of people saying that their e-mail password was compromised as well. If they got your e-mail password and it's linked to your WoW user-id, then you're hacked because all they have to do is reset the password and Blizzard e-mails you a new one, which they can now read. My buddy had his Yahoo e-mail compromised which happened to be his WoW e-mail address and bingo, hacked account. How they got his Yahoo e-mail password is a mystery. I don't know what is going on, but something is not right and it's not just Blizzard being affected.
Also, please think of one thing.
many people use the EXACT same login for 10 sites. It's a lot easier for some noname website to have their information taken/ "lost"/sold to someone who can than access your wow account because of that.
Be sure to clean up your files after you visit all those shady porn sites~
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This thread just re-assures me that getting authenticators for all of our family Blizzard accounts was a very good idea. I did this especially since we were leaving the game, either temporarily or possibly permanently....we don't know yet. Regardless, we've all invested tons of time over the past 5 years, and I wanted to protect that investment, even if we weren't going to be playing.
I know it seems kind of nuts to have to invest $6.50 per account (for 3 accounts) that we're not using...but it just seemed a small price to pay for some peace of mind during our absence, regardless of how long that absence might continue. We MAY want to return for Cataclysm. We've not decided for sure yet, so....yeah, I'm glad we did this.
I guess we'll find out if the authenticators were a worthwhile investment, if and when we play again. But...at least I know we've done everything we can to protect the accounts, and I would think, that when it comes to returning stuff IF you get hacked...that Blizzard would consider that. I don't know though....it hasn't happened yet. I hope I don't have to go through the hassle of ever finding out on that one. heh
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
My account was hacked the very day that Battle.net became mandatory.
The problem, IMO, isn't a simple email (cause I don't have frivoulous email), it wasn't some keylogger, cause I don't DL from anywhere except DVD's and nothing new was added to my computer, as well. If I were a hacker, which I'm not, the target wouldn't be 8 million subscribers... that's insanely stupid.... I would target the bottleneck -Battle.net.
The odds of account hacks rising because of a mandatory change is forseeable, especially when there is one single point of entry. Lets assume that Yahoo.com or Gmail.com were the target of this hacking tool. I could then say that a small percentage of players would have been hacked. If the hackers targetted all major online email providers, the number would rise again, but not to the level I have seen. Ok... now lets add all the major internet provider email servers... hmmm, thats a nice number (about 375 more hacking points)... surely that would bring the amount of hacks above a brow raise.
But... given that information, wouldn't it be easier to target the one point that all of the 8 million+ subs use? I'm not saying that Battle.net was hacked, but anyone with a good tool (sniff sniff) could eventually find a way to tap into private information streams -especially when emails, in general, have no security against good hacking tools.
My hacker was quite amusing...
Took all my gold, made me purchase tons of mining gems, sold my Tier armor, and logged me off 2000 yards above ground... when I logged on, I fell, died and was in the middle of nowhere. They sent me a small pet from a game account (Im assuming was also hacked) from a user named FKYUM8... I had to laugh.
Blizzard took two weeks giving me back what ever they wanted or thought I had (horrible experience there)... minus my gold.
I may be wrong, but I think you can link multiple accounts to one authenticator