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.
So the "payday" would be somewhere between $30 and $5 million assuming every western player was forced to buy an authenticator at $6. That is before any expenses like shipping, production, packaging and it also doens't include those who would just get the app for free or $1 for mobile devices, so you would further cut down the payday significantly.
You are talking about maybe a few million dollar payday for a game that makes of 1 billion a year? and this is somehow worth it for blizzard to put the players through hell for?
One of the strengths blizzard has built wow on is the ability to regain former players. Putting people through this mess doesn't make inactive players very happy does it? Sending out "you have been banned" isn't a great incentive for people to come back.
Just imagine the fallout if this story every came out. Would you risk your billion dollar reputation on a $5 or $10 million dollars?
If blizzard wanted a payday they would just stuff the cash shop full of junk to sell and avoid all this bullshit.
Here is the point blank truth. Far to many end user are fucking stupid and careless with their account credentials and security habits.
What next? Blame credit card companies for identity theft?
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.
So the "payday" would be somewhere between $30 and $5 million assuming every western player was forced to buy an authenticator at $6. That is before any expenses like shipping, production, packaging and it also doens't include those who would just get the app for free or $1 for mobile devices, so you would further cut down the payday significantly.
You are talking about maybe a few million dollar payday for a game that makes of 1 billion a year? and this is somehow worth it for blizzard to put the players through hell for?
One of the strengths blizzard has built wow on is the ability to regain former players. Putting people through this mess doesn't make inactive players very happy does it? Sending out "you have been banned" isn't a great incentive for people to come back.
Just imagine the fallout if this story every came out. Would you risk your billion dollar reputation on a $5 or $10 million dollars?
If blizzard wanted a payday they would just stuff the cash shop full of junk to sell and avoid all this bullshit.
Here is the point blank truth. Far to many end user are fucking stupid and careless with their account credentials and security habits.
What next? Blame credit card companies for identity theft?
I wonder why, after reading your posts on this subject I get the picture of an office manager running around putting out fires? Dont take this personally, but you seem to have to much invested in Blizzard for me to take anything you say seriously. I came to these forums looking for opinions other than what Blizzard is telling people.
Originally posted by Pappy13 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?
Stolen credit cards can be used to reactivate old accounts and authenticators are free if you have the proper mobile device. Thus their cost is zero. SOE announced recently they get charged back about some crazy amount of money as a result of hackers using stolen credit cards in the gold selling industry. I think they said it was over 1 million per six months.
New accounts could be purchased with stolen credit cards or whatever, but they don't come with characters that can be used to farm gold. Why spend time leveling up a character when you have a free stream of premade characters to use?
Originally posted by MavisP I wonder why, after reading your posts on this subject I get the picture of an office manager running around putting out fires? Dont take this personally, but you seem to have to much invested in Blizzard for me to take anything you say seriously. I came to these forums looking for opinions other than what Blizzard is telling people.
Its funny, because I feel that I am one of the few people being rational here.
It just gets really old listening to people spread misinformation about hacking and puffing up their chest like they are bulletproof and the fault must be the result of someone else.
Did what I say make sense about the payday you think blizzard would get or did you find it easy to ignore by placing some values on me as a person?
I could really care less about blizzard and am just waiting to jump to a new game, because wow is long in the tooth. I just get a little irritated at people who lack understanding and information jumping to ridiculous conclusions. This isn't the first time people have blamed a company for their accounts getting hacked and it won't be the last. The one constant truth is that people are generally dumb about their account information and there is a never ending source of people anxious to hand over their information to the wrong people.
There hasn't been one person in this thread that has made a compelling argument to support these theories. In fact there have been enough people pushing that theory that have displayed the exact lack of understanding about account hacking that it just makes me further believe people are their own worst enemies here.
When there is a lack of understanding about something, people will find a way to make an explanation.
Originally posted by MavisP I wonder why, after reading your posts on this subject I get the picture of an office manager running around putting out fires? Dont take this personally, but you seem to have to much invested in Blizzard for me to take anything you say seriously. I came to these forums looking for opinions other than what Blizzard is telling people.
Its funny, because I feel that I am one of the few people being rational here.
It just gets really old listening to people spread misinformation about hacking and puffing up their chest like they are bulletproof and the fault must be the result of someone else.
Did what I say make sense about the payday you think blizzard would get or did you find it easy to ignore by placing some values on me as a person?
I could really care less about blizzard and am just waiting to jump to a new game, because wow is long in the tooth. I just get a little irritated at people who lack understanding and information jumping to ridiculous conclusions. This isn't the first time people have blamed a company for their accounts getting hacked and it won't be the last. The one constant truth is that people are generally dumb about their account information and there is a never ending source of people anxious to hand over their information to the wrong people.
There hasn't been one person in this thread that has made a compelling argument to support these theories. In fact there have been enough people pushing that theory that have displayed the exact lack of understanding about account hacking that it just makes me further believe people are their own worst enemies here.
When there is a lack of understanding about something, people will find a way to make an explanation.
There has been a lot of hacked accounts since everyone went to battlenet. So its either you believe Blizzard screwed the pooch or that all the people having problems, only since the switch, all had a brain farts at once. Believe what you want but Ive found that the simple explanation is usually the correct one.
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.
So the "payday" would be somewhere between $30 and $5 million assuming every western player was forced to buy an authenticator at $6. That is before any expenses like shipping, production, packaging and it also doens't include those who would just get the app for free or $1 for mobile devices, so you would further cut down the payday significantly.
You are talking about maybe a few million dollar payday for a game that makes of 1 billion a year? and this is somehow worth it for blizzard to put the players through hell for?
One of the strengths blizzard has built wow on is the ability to regain former players. Putting people through this mess doesn't make inactive players very happy does it? Sending out "you have been banned" isn't a great incentive for people to come back.
Just imagine the fallout if this story every came out. Would you risk your billion dollar reputation on a $5 or $10 million dollars?
If blizzard wanted a payday they would just stuff the cash shop full of junk to sell and avoid all this bullshit.
Here is the point blank truth. Far to many end user are fucking stupid and careless with their account credentials and security habits.
What next? Blame credit card companies for identity theft?
I wonder why, after reading your posts on this subject I get the picture of an office manager running around putting out fires? Dont take this personally, but you seem to have to much invested in Blizzard for me to take anything you say seriously. I came to these forums looking for opinions other than what Blizzard is telling people.
In other words, you aren't interested in the truth? Or a practical solution? You are just looking for a reflection of what you already believe? The reality IS that WAY too many people are almost totally clueless when it comes to basic computer security. That reality is what Blizzard has to deal with on a daily basis. Its also that reality that is making the hackers job much easier than it should be.
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.
So the "payday" would be somewhere between $30 and $5 million assuming every western player was forced to buy an authenticator at $6. That is before any expenses like shipping, production, packaging and it also doens't include those who would just get the app for free or $1 for mobile devices, so you would further cut down the payday significantly.
You are talking about maybe a few million dollar payday for a game that makes of 1 billion a year? and this is somehow worth it for blizzard to put the players through hell for?
One of the strengths blizzard has built wow on is the ability to regain former players. Putting people through this mess doesn't make inactive players very happy does it? Sending out "you have been banned" isn't a great incentive for people to come back.
Just imagine the fallout if this story every came out. Would you risk your billion dollar reputation on a $5 or $10 million dollars?
If blizzard wanted a payday they would just stuff the cash shop full of junk to sell and avoid all this bullshit.
Here is the point blank truth. Far to many end user are fucking stupid and careless with their account credentials and security habits.
What next? Blame credit card companies for identity theft?
I wonder why, after reading your posts on this subject I get the picture of an office manager running around putting out fires? Dont take this personally, but you seem to have to much invested in Blizzard for me to take anything you say seriously. I came to these forums looking for opinions other than what Blizzard is telling people.
In other words, you aren't interested in the truth? Or a practical solution? You are just looking for a reflection of what you already believe? The reality IS that WAY too many people are almost totally clueless when it comes to basic computer security. That reality is what Blizzard has to deal with on a daily basis. Its also that reality that is making the hackers job much easier than it should be.
The "reality" is that a lot of people are having problems now that didnt have any until battlenet . Blizzards "practical" solution is to charge for security because of a problem they created. Ive stated my feelings on this and choose to move on, my account expires tomorrow. You and a few others please feel free to make excuses for Blizzard and continue playing. Its strange to me how some of you people defend Blizzard like it was you significant other. To me, its just one game of many and I have no problem what so ever pulling the plug. Good luck and have fun.
I hate to admit it but i d/l'ed the WoW trial in a moment of weakness about a year ago. Played for a few hours, got bored and uninstalled it. Then a couple of weeks ago i get an email saying... Greetings!
This is an automated notification regarding the recent change(s)
made to your World of Warcraft account. Your password has recently been modified through the Password Recovery website.
*** If you made this password change, please disregard this notification. However, if you did NOT make changes to your password
If you are unable to successfully verify your password .
using the automated system, please contact Billing & Account Services at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (1-800-592-5499) Mon-Fri, 8am-8pm Pacific Time or at billing@blizzard.com. Account security is solely the responsibility of the account holder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives typically must lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.
Regards,
The World of Warcraft Support Team Blizzard Entertainment
I could care less but i have no idea how they hacked into it since i forgot the account even existed lol.
That is a phishing email. The sender hopes that you will click on a link that will take you to what looks like the wow website and hope you enter your account information there.
Your account is most likely untouched.
Your right lol. I missed it the first time cause i never click links in emails. I went to Blizzards site via google and found my account name/password weren't working so assumed it was genuine. Have to say they are getting better with the phishing emails as this one looks the real deal.
Am I the only one totally confused now? Has your account information been compromised or not? If it HAS been compromised this MAY be a legitimate e-mail from Blizzard telling you that your account password was changed without your knowledge.
My account has been compromised (i use the same username/password for all mmo's cause im an old bugger with a bad memory) and when i went to WoW's actual site i couldnt log in. However that email is a fake as the link sends you to a phishing site (http://www.wor1dofwarcrvft.com) and came from wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com (looks official but must not be).
WoW isn't the only game under attack. A guildy of mine was on holiday in Europe (and not even near a computer) when we were playing Aion and somehow they hacked into his account and used it to bot/farm harvestables for a couple of weeks. We had to kick the toon from the guild till he got back and got in contact with NCSoft who eventually got his account back for him. We were mystified how he got hacked since he wasnt even in the country let alone near a computer lol.
Just got this phishing email...........
Someone 65.255.34.173 Aion has been reset to your game account password. If you not make the change, please contact support https://secure.ncsoft.com/login.
I don't think anyone here actually believes Blizzard hatched some scheme to sell Authenticators, that would be insane, and it's not the point of this thread or the reason people are very upset.
I've been playing MMO's for about 10 years and I don't think I have EVER called a game customer support line until this past week, to deal with my WoW account being compromised. My account was inactive for OVER A YEAR, and when I say this I want you to infer from this that I did not type my password anywhere, on any computer, for over a year!
Then I receive an email from Blizzard stating that I have 10 days of free time as an Anniversary Gift. This was a legitimate email (not phishing) and when I talked to the customer support dude he confirmed that it was real (a lot of people re-activated for the anniversary thing) and he could see my account activity for that period. But part of me being able to re-activate my account was that I convert my account to a battle.net account, which I did, and all this was through the worldofwarcraft.com account section, which redirected me through the account process etc. Once I converted to the battle.net I was able to login and play my free time for a couple days, I didn't end up subscribing so my free time just expired and I forgot about it.
Then 3 days ago out of nowhere I get the "Account Closure - Exploiting the Economy Blah Blah" email.
Then I notice a massive thread here about battle.net accounts being compromised. Hmm interesting...
Then I say to myself, "I am not stupid, I am an intelligent person who does not allow key logger and viruses to be installed on my home computers. I have not had any virus or keylogger issues for 10 years why should it happen now?"
So I think you can see why I am VERY skeptical about this whole thing, the only explanation is that I had a keylogger installed on my computer (NO FUCKING WAY), or that my credentials were taken from someone at Blizzard or battle.net, etc, someone internally who has access to the database.
And to see all these people having the same problem at the same time, dealing with the same battle.net conversion, well that makes me even more skeptical!
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.
So the "payday" would be somewhere between $30 and $5 million assuming every western player was forced to buy an authenticator at $6. That is before any expenses like shipping, production, packaging and it also doens't include those who would just get the app for free or $1 for mobile devices, so you would further cut down the payday significantly.
You are talking about maybe a few million dollar payday for a game that makes of 1 billion a year? and this is somehow worth it for blizzard to put the players through hell for?
One of the strengths blizzard has built wow on is the ability to regain former players. Putting people through this mess doesn't make inactive players very happy does it? Sending out "you have been banned" isn't a great incentive for people to come back.
Just imagine the fallout if this story every came out. Would you risk your billion dollar reputation on a $5 or $10 million dollars?
If blizzard wanted a payday they would just stuff the cash shop full of junk to sell and avoid all this bullshit.
Here is the point blank truth. Far to many end user are fucking stupid and careless with their account credentials and security habits.
What next? Blame credit card companies for identity theft?
I wonder why, after reading your posts on this subject I get the picture of an office manager running around putting out fires? Dont take this personally, but you seem to have to much invested in Blizzard for me to take anything you say seriously. I came to these forums looking for opinions other than what Blizzard is telling people.
In other words, you aren't interested in the truth? Or a practical solution? You are just looking for a reflection of what you already believe? The reality IS that WAY too many people are almost totally clueless when it comes to basic computer security. That reality is what Blizzard has to deal with on a daily basis. Its also that reality that is making the hackers job much easier than it should be.
The "reality" is that a lot of people are having problems now that didnt have any until battlenet . Blizzards "practical" solution is to charge for security because of a problem they created. Ive stated my feelings on this and choose to move on, my account expires tomorrow. You and a few others please feel free to make excuses for Blizzard and continue playing. Its strange to me how some of you people defend Blizzard like it was you significant other. To me, its just one game of many and I have no problem what so ever pulling the plug. Good luck and have fun.
Once again, correlation is not causality. Lots of people had the same types of problems before the conversion. I suspect the increasing rate of such problems was one of the reasons behind the conversion and other changes. Thanks, I shall.
Below is the following email I just received like 5 minutes ago:
Dear AionSource.com member,
It has come to our attention that during a recent attempt to hack our website, hackers may have gained access to email addresses used to register accounts here at AionSource.com. We always value your safety, and strive to maintain your trust. We've comprised a list of ways to protect yourself and what to be on the look out for. DO NOT TRUST ANY EMAIL LINK that is related to your password for Aion Online or AionSource.com, always open your browser and type in the website address manually. Also please thoroughly read our announcement regarding how to protect yourself and your passwords form phishing scams.
We value your time, and assure you we are doing everything in our power to prevent problems like this from affecting our network in the future. Your safety and ability to use our website worry-free is our top priority.
Thank you,
- AionSource.com Staff
Man this is insane, to think, there are people sitting around a computer somewhere, too lazy to get a real job so they try to ruin the fun of innocent people. I think these individuals should be tracked, after catching them they should be tried and severely punished. I received an email from the perpetrators yesterday but I knew it was a phony. This is why things like this happen, like your account getting hacked, cause of people like this.
Originally posted by Pappy13 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?
Stolen credit cards can be used to reactivate old accounts and authenticators are free if you have the proper mobile device. Thus their cost is zero. SOE announced recently they get charged back about some crazy amount of money as a result of hackers using stolen credit cards in the gold selling industry. I think they said it was over 1 million per six months.
New accounts could be purchased with stolen credit cards or whatever, but they don't come with characters that can be used to farm gold. Why spend time leveling up a character when you have a free stream of premade characters to use?
Because a new account is not going to be suspended by Blizzard when it's rightful owner tries to take back the account. If you are only going to use the account for a couple hours, a compromised account works great because there won't be time for the user to realize the account has been compromised to do anything about it. If you are going to use the account for several months, might as well go ahead and get a new account and you can use it as long as you need, it's free either way if you use a stolen credit card.
Originally posted by MavisP There has been a lot of hacked accounts since everyone went to battlenet. So its either you believe Blizzard screwed the pooch or that all the people having problems, only since the switch, all had a brain farts at once. Believe what you want but Ive found that the simple explanation is usually the correct one.
What would that simple explanation be?
A) there is some sort of security breach at blizzard ever few months that coincides with topics such as this
-or-
players decided to change their login name to something they have been posting and registering other accounts all over the internet with, thus exposing 50% of their login information and their account recovery portal.
Which of those options takes a gigantic leap of faith into the unknown and which one of those is a cardinal sin for account security?
Perhaps we both just view what is simple as something very different.
This isn't the first time a group of people have run around panicing "my account got hacked, Rar Rar! I don't know how it happened, Rar Rar! I'm to smart to get hacked, Rar! Rar! It must be someone else, Rar Rar!" Conspiracy, Rar Rar!.
Notice, that account hacking has been a steadily increasing problem for wow. This isn't something brand new or that blizzard hasn't been working double time to get people to secure their account credentials. It isn't like blizzard made the authenticator in anticipation of a problem.
Originally posted by Pappy13 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?
Stolen credit cards can be used to reactivate old accounts and authenticators are free if you have the proper mobile device. Thus their cost is zero. SOE announced recently they get charged back about some crazy amount of money as a result of hackers using stolen credit cards in the gold selling industry. I think they said it was over 1 million per six months.
New accounts could be purchased with stolen credit cards or whatever, but they don't come with characters that can be used to farm gold. Why spend time leveling up a character when you have a free stream of premade characters to use?
Because a new account is not going to be suspended by Blizzard when it's rightful owner tries to take back the account. If you are only going to use the account for a couple hours, a compromised account works great because there won't be time for the user to realize the account has been compromised to do anything about it. If you are going to use the account for several months, might as well go ahead and get a new account and you can use it as long as you need, it's free either way if you use a stolen credit card.
What exactly is a hacker going to do with blank account except spam gold sales in a few cities with some level 1 characters? Where does the gold come from in doing this? Eventually the credit card owner is going to report the fraud, the money will be charged back and blizzard will ban the account. I really don't see where you are going with this or how you think gold farmers will profit from buying an empty account.
Why hack accounts instead of buying a new blank account? Some accounts have enough gold/items/tokens to be profitable to strip clean. Some don't and are better suited to farm gold via botting. Some have nothing of real value so they bot them with gold spam characters and post links on the official forums to infected websites, so it looks like legit high level characters are sharing information.
It costs money to buy a legit account that won't get banned for credit card charge back
More money to pay monthy fee
Time to level a character to the point of doing anything that could generate some gold.
Why do all that when it is quicker, cheaper and easier to just steal what they need? I really can't believe we are really having this discussion.
Originally posted by MavisP There has been a lot of hacked accounts since everyone went to battlenet. So its either you believe Blizzard screwed the pooch or that all the people having problems, only since the switch, all had a brain farts at once. Believe what you want but Ive found that the simple explanation is usually the correct one.
What would that simple explanation be?
A) there is some sort of security breach at blizzard ever few months that coincides with topics such as this
Are there posts from Blizzard every few months that they are experiencing a high volume of calls to customer service? No, there hasn't been one for a year, but they just posted one yesterday. I would think that suggests that there has been an increase lately. I don't know what has caused it, perhaps you are right and it's just a growing problem or perhaps it is unrelated to Blizzard's security, but there HAS been an increase lately. To say there hasn't been is wishful thinking at best in light of what we now know.
I am not saying there hasn't been an increase. It is also not the first time there has been an increase of response time due to hacked accounts. The posts I was referring to were posts just like this were people get hacked, have no idea how and find some conclusion that absolves themselves of responsibility.
There is an increase in hacked accounts during the time where many people changed their login name to something they have been spreading all over the internet for years. The same login name they most likely use for password recovery services. Was this inspiring by a stupid choice from blizzard, sure. Is it a crystal clear example of users being irresponsible with their login credentials, yes.
I am not saying there hasn't been an increase. It is also not the first time there has been an increase of response time due to hacked accounts.
It is however the first time as far as I know that Blizzard has instituted a new 'care package' policy in lieu of a complete restoration of your account.
I am not saying there hasn't been an increase. It is also not the first time there has been an increase of response time due to hacked accounts.
It is however the first time as far as I know that Blizzard has instituted a new 'care package' policy in lieu of a complete restoration of your account.
They said the Titanic couldn't be sunk. You see it was built with self-sealing chambers in the bottom of the ocean liner that would contain any intake of water to that particular section of the ship which would prevent the ship from sinking.
The captain of the Titanic was so convinced that it was unsinkable that on it's maiden voyage he steered it full steam ahead into an area that was known to have contained icebergs.
Unfortunately an Iceberg struck the Titanic and ripped a hole down the entire side of the vessel. The self sealing chambers did seal themselves off just as they were supposed to but the hole was so large that many of the self sealing chambers filled up. As more and more of the chambers filled with sea water, the ship started to list to one side. When that happened the water in the self sealing chambers started to spill over the tops of the chambers and spilled into additional chambers that would have otherwise stayed dry. The result was that the Titanic eventually took on enough water and sunk.
What they SHOULD have said was that the odds of the Titanic sinking were VERY LARGE. Only because the captain considered the Titanic unsinkable did it actually sink. If he would have used caution in an iceberg filled area and slowed the ship down to a safe speed, most likely the Titanic would not have sunk when it hit the iceberg, the self-sealing chambers would have worked as expected.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana
I know what the OP is talking about, assuming he's innocent. I have never been hi-jacked in my 18 or so years of gaming until recently. I hadn't played World of Warcraft in months, my account was inactive blah blah. Then, I get an e-mail from Blizzard out of nowhere saying that I have been spamming in chats and then another claiming I have been banned for selling in-game currency.
However, it got reversed and I still have my account (got a free month too) and had to get my Priest restored. All is well, though, however I never had these problems before Battle.Net accounts.. so you might have to wonder. It's a good thing I don't really care for WoW anymore, however I do care for other upcoming titles and hope things like this are resolved.
I am not saying there hasn't been an increase. It is also not the first time there has been an increase of response time due to hacked accounts.
It is however the first time as far as I know that Blizzard has instituted a new 'care package' policy in lieu of a complete restoration of your account.
I know back in vanilla wow blizzard offered some sort of "leg up kit" for hacked accounts. I'm just curious what you think this suggests?
I hadn't heard of it before. If you can provide a link or at least some details then that would refute my assertion that this is the first time something like this has happened.
The only people that are saying something is impossible are the players. Sure anything is possible, but there is a mountain of information and clear history of player fault that needs to be ignored to get to that unlikely possibility.
This same exact conversation is going on in the aion forums, but then again it is mathematically possible that both companies had major security brake downs and all those players that keep repeating the same security misinformation are right that they are invulnerable to getting hacked.
Nice analogy though. It doesn't really change anything, but still a decent analogy.
Yes, but phishing emails are entirely seperate from battlenet. Because whether or not battlenet uses your email address or your username, there is still an email associated with the account, so a mass spam to a bought list of email accounts would be just as viable regardless of whether the email address is the userid or not.
See what I mean?
Prior to Battlenet registration my account "name' was a random mish-mash of numbers and letters I had written down on a card in my wallet. Then came battlenet. I was asked to use an email as my "sign on". Hmmm.... Which email should I use? The one I use for junk sites so my main email does not get junk mail? Or the lesser used one that I have used for my main email? I chose the latter. I have used this Email address for 12 years. I have also used it to create accounts on various forums (including this one). I had used my WoW log in name for absolutely NOTHING.
In my internet travels over the years I have subscribed to many fan sites (like this one) downloaded add -ons, and F2P games...always being careful for suspicious activity and trying to make sure an add on or web site was "legit". Not once in 12 years had I been "hacked".
If a hacker managed to compromise any website of or relating to Video games...specifically mmo's , then he would have access to EMAIL ADDRESSES. Email addresses in and of themselves would be relatively useless unless they happen to also be a method of signing on to BATTLE.NET. With 11 million subscribers there is a decent chance that if you find an email address on an mmorpg web sight that you have potentially discovered a sign on for an account. Now all you need is to hack the password somehow, either by phishing or brute force or other means. Getting the account Sign on is half the battle. The arguement here has been that using email address has made it easier for hackers to gain access to accounts.
I can assure you nobody knew my sign on prior to the switch over to battle.net. Heck half the time I couldn't remember it myself and had to refer to the card in my wallet.
How are they going to get a password to an account that they can't find in the first place?
See what I mean?
Edit: I just don't understand how anyone could argue that:
1) going from personal sign ons to email addresses could NOT compromise security
2) that the recent spat of compromised accounts (especially inactive accounts) does not have something to do with the recent switch to battle.net.
I'm currently going to make a new email account with a similar mish mash of numbers for the sole purpose of making it my sign on for WoW. I wish I had done that in the first place.
Maybe they hacked into that dam mountain dew web site (battlebot).
Comments
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.
So the "payday" would be somewhere between $30 and $5 million assuming every western player was forced to buy an authenticator at $6. That is before any expenses like shipping, production, packaging and it also doens't include those who would just get the app for free or $1 for mobile devices, so you would further cut down the payday significantly.
You are talking about maybe a few million dollar payday for a game that makes of 1 billion a year? and this is somehow worth it for blizzard to put the players through hell for?
One of the strengths blizzard has built wow on is the ability to regain former players. Putting people through this mess doesn't make inactive players very happy does it? Sending out "you have been banned" isn't a great incentive for people to come back.
Just imagine the fallout if this story every came out. Would you risk your billion dollar reputation on a $5 or $10 million dollars?
If blizzard wanted a payday they would just stuff the cash shop full of junk to sell and avoid all this bullshit.
Here is the point blank truth. Far to many end user are fucking stupid and careless with their account credentials and security habits.
What next? Blame credit card companies for identity theft?
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.
So the "payday" would be somewhere between $30 and $5 million assuming every western player was forced to buy an authenticator at $6. That is before any expenses like shipping, production, packaging and it also doens't include those who would just get the app for free or $1 for mobile devices, so you would further cut down the payday significantly.
You are talking about maybe a few million dollar payday for a game that makes of 1 billion a year? and this is somehow worth it for blizzard to put the players through hell for?
One of the strengths blizzard has built wow on is the ability to regain former players. Putting people through this mess doesn't make inactive players very happy does it? Sending out "you have been banned" isn't a great incentive for people to come back.
Just imagine the fallout if this story every came out. Would you risk your billion dollar reputation on a $5 or $10 million dollars?
If blizzard wanted a payday they would just stuff the cash shop full of junk to sell and avoid all this bullshit.
Here is the point blank truth. Far to many end user are fucking stupid and careless with their account credentials and security habits.
What next? Blame credit card companies for identity theft?
I wonder why, after reading your posts on this subject I get the picture of an office manager running around putting out fires? Dont take this personally, but you seem to have to much invested in Blizzard for me to take anything you say seriously. I came to these forums looking for opinions other than what Blizzard is telling people.
Stolen credit cards can be used to reactivate old accounts and authenticators are free if you have the proper mobile device. Thus their cost is zero. SOE announced recently they get charged back about some crazy amount of money as a result of hackers using stolen credit cards in the gold selling industry. I think they said it was over 1 million per six months.
New accounts could be purchased with stolen credit cards or whatever, but they don't come with characters that can be used to farm gold. Why spend time leveling up a character when you have a free stream of premade characters to use?
Its funny, because I feel that I am one of the few people being rational here.
It just gets really old listening to people spread misinformation about hacking and puffing up their chest like they are bulletproof and the fault must be the result of someone else.
Did what I say make sense about the payday you think blizzard would get or did you find it easy to ignore by placing some values on me as a person?
I could really care less about blizzard and am just waiting to jump to a new game, because wow is long in the tooth. I just get a little irritated at people who lack understanding and information jumping to ridiculous conclusions. This isn't the first time people have blamed a company for their accounts getting hacked and it won't be the last. The one constant truth is that people are generally dumb about their account information and there is a never ending source of people anxious to hand over their information to the wrong people.
There hasn't been one person in this thread that has made a compelling argument to support these theories. In fact there have been enough people pushing that theory that have displayed the exact lack of understanding about account hacking that it just makes me further believe people are their own worst enemies here.
When there is a lack of understanding about something, people will find a way to make an explanation.
Its funny, because I feel that I am one of the few people being rational here.
It just gets really old listening to people spread misinformation about hacking and puffing up their chest like they are bulletproof and the fault must be the result of someone else.
Did what I say make sense about the payday you think blizzard would get or did you find it easy to ignore by placing some values on me as a person?
I could really care less about blizzard and am just waiting to jump to a new game, because wow is long in the tooth. I just get a little irritated at people who lack understanding and information jumping to ridiculous conclusions. This isn't the first time people have blamed a company for their accounts getting hacked and it won't be the last. The one constant truth is that people are generally dumb about their account information and there is a never ending source of people anxious to hand over their information to the wrong people.
There hasn't been one person in this thread that has made a compelling argument to support these theories. In fact there have been enough people pushing that theory that have displayed the exact lack of understanding about account hacking that it just makes me further believe people are their own worst enemies here.
When there is a lack of understanding about something, people will find a way to make an explanation.
There has been a lot of hacked accounts since everyone went to battlenet. So its either you believe Blizzard screwed the pooch or that all the people having problems, only since the switch, all had a brain farts at once. Believe what you want but Ive found that the simple explanation is usually the correct one.
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.
So the "payday" would be somewhere between $30 and $5 million assuming every western player was forced to buy an authenticator at $6. That is before any expenses like shipping, production, packaging and it also doens't include those who would just get the app for free or $1 for mobile devices, so you would further cut down the payday significantly.
You are talking about maybe a few million dollar payday for a game that makes of 1 billion a year? and this is somehow worth it for blizzard to put the players through hell for?
One of the strengths blizzard has built wow on is the ability to regain former players. Putting people through this mess doesn't make inactive players very happy does it? Sending out "you have been banned" isn't a great incentive for people to come back.
Just imagine the fallout if this story every came out. Would you risk your billion dollar reputation on a $5 or $10 million dollars?
If blizzard wanted a payday they would just stuff the cash shop full of junk to sell and avoid all this bullshit.
Here is the point blank truth. Far to many end user are fucking stupid and careless with their account credentials and security habits.
What next? Blame credit card companies for identity theft?
I wonder why, after reading your posts on this subject I get the picture of an office manager running around putting out fires? Dont take this personally, but you seem to have to much invested in Blizzard for me to take anything you say seriously. I came to these forums looking for opinions other than what Blizzard is telling people.
In other words, you aren't interested in the truth? Or a practical solution? You are just looking for a reflection of what you already believe? The reality IS that WAY too many people are almost totally clueless when it comes to basic computer security. That reality is what Blizzard has to deal with on a daily basis. Its also that reality that is making the hackers job much easier than it should be.
Blizzard Entertainment:
http://www.trustlink.org/BusinessProfile.aspx?ID=205737049
http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Report/Blizzard-Entertainment-13050668
rating B? ha!
File your complaint here:
http://www.la.bbb.org/ComplaintDetail.aspx?CompanyID=13050668
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.
So the "payday" would be somewhere between $30 and $5 million assuming every western player was forced to buy an authenticator at $6. That is before any expenses like shipping, production, packaging and it also doens't include those who would just get the app for free or $1 for mobile devices, so you would further cut down the payday significantly.
You are talking about maybe a few million dollar payday for a game that makes of 1 billion a year? and this is somehow worth it for blizzard to put the players through hell for?
One of the strengths blizzard has built wow on is the ability to regain former players. Putting people through this mess doesn't make inactive players very happy does it? Sending out "you have been banned" isn't a great incentive for people to come back.
Just imagine the fallout if this story every came out. Would you risk your billion dollar reputation on a $5 or $10 million dollars?
If blizzard wanted a payday they would just stuff the cash shop full of junk to sell and avoid all this bullshit.
Here is the point blank truth. Far to many end user are fucking stupid and careless with their account credentials and security habits.
What next? Blame credit card companies for identity theft?
I wonder why, after reading your posts on this subject I get the picture of an office manager running around putting out fires? Dont take this personally, but you seem to have to much invested in Blizzard for me to take anything you say seriously. I came to these forums looking for opinions other than what Blizzard is telling people.
In other words, you aren't interested in the truth? Or a practical solution? You are just looking for a reflection of what you already believe? The reality IS that WAY too many people are almost totally clueless when it comes to basic computer security. That reality is what Blizzard has to deal with on a daily basis. Its also that reality that is making the hackers job much easier than it should be.
The "reality" is that a lot of people are having problems now that didnt have any until battlenet . Blizzards "practical" solution is to charge for security because of a problem they created. Ive stated my feelings on this and choose to move on, my account expires tomorrow. You and a few others please feel free to make excuses for Blizzard and continue playing. Its strange to me how some of you people defend Blizzard like it was you significant other. To me, its just one game of many and I have no problem what so ever pulling the plug. Good luck and have fun.
Thank you.
That is a phishing email. The sender hopes that you will click on a link that will take you to what looks like the wow website and hope you enter your account information there.
Your account is most likely untouched.
Your right lol. I missed it the first time cause i never click links in emails. I went to Blizzards site via google and found my account name/password weren't working so assumed it was genuine. Have to say they are getting better with the phishing emails as this one looks the real deal.
Am I the only one totally confused now? Has your account information been compromised or not? If it HAS been compromised this MAY be a legitimate e-mail from Blizzard telling you that your account password was changed without your knowledge.
My account has been compromised (i use the same username/password for all mmo's cause im an old bugger with a bad memory) and when i went to WoW's actual site i couldnt log in. However that email is a fake as the link sends you to a phishing site (http://www.wor1dofwarcrvft.com) and came from wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com (looks official but must not be).
WoW isn't the only game under attack. A guildy of mine was on holiday in Europe (and not even near a computer) when we were playing Aion and somehow they hacked into his account and used it to bot/farm harvestables for a couple of weeks. We had to kick the toon from the guild till he got back and got in contact with NCSoft who eventually got his account back for him. We were mystified how he got hacked since he wasnt even in the country let alone near a computer lol.
Just got this phishing email...........
Someone 65.255.34.173 Aion has been reset to your game account password. If you not make the change, please contact support https://secure.ncsoft.com/login.
But its so obvious its a fake lol.
I don't think anyone here actually believes Blizzard hatched some scheme to sell Authenticators, that would be insane, and it's not the point of this thread or the reason people are very upset.
I've been playing MMO's for about 10 years and I don't think I have EVER called a game customer support line until this past week, to deal with my WoW account being compromised. My account was inactive for OVER A YEAR, and when I say this I want you to infer from this that I did not type my password anywhere, on any computer, for over a year!
Then I receive an email from Blizzard stating that I have 10 days of free time as an Anniversary Gift. This was a legitimate email (not phishing) and when I talked to the customer support dude he confirmed that it was real (a lot of people re-activated for the anniversary thing) and he could see my account activity for that period. But part of me being able to re-activate my account was that I convert my account to a battle.net account, which I did, and all this was through the worldofwarcraft.com account section, which redirected me through the account process etc. Once I converted to the battle.net I was able to login and play my free time for a couple days, I didn't end up subscribing so my free time just expired and I forgot about it.
Then 3 days ago out of nowhere I get the "Account Closure - Exploiting the Economy Blah Blah" email.
Then I notice a massive thread here about battle.net accounts being compromised. Hmm interesting...
Then I say to myself, "I am not stupid, I am an intelligent person who does not allow key logger and viruses to be installed on my home computers. I have not had any virus or keylogger issues for 10 years why should it happen now?"
So I think you can see why I am VERY skeptical about this whole thing, the only explanation is that I had a keylogger installed on my computer (NO FUCKING WAY), or that my credentials were taken from someone at Blizzard or battle.net, etc, someone internally who has access to the database.
And to see all these people having the same problem at the same time, dealing with the same battle.net conversion, well that makes me even more skeptical!
SKEPTICAL CAT IS VERY SKEPTICAL!
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.
So the "payday" would be somewhere between $30 and $5 million assuming every western player was forced to buy an authenticator at $6. That is before any expenses like shipping, production, packaging and it also doens't include those who would just get the app for free or $1 for mobile devices, so you would further cut down the payday significantly.
You are talking about maybe a few million dollar payday for a game that makes of 1 billion a year? and this is somehow worth it for blizzard to put the players through hell for?
One of the strengths blizzard has built wow on is the ability to regain former players. Putting people through this mess doesn't make inactive players very happy does it? Sending out "you have been banned" isn't a great incentive for people to come back.
Just imagine the fallout if this story every came out. Would you risk your billion dollar reputation on a $5 or $10 million dollars?
If blizzard wanted a payday they would just stuff the cash shop full of junk to sell and avoid all this bullshit.
Here is the point blank truth. Far to many end user are fucking stupid and careless with their account credentials and security habits.
What next? Blame credit card companies for identity theft?
I wonder why, after reading your posts on this subject I get the picture of an office manager running around putting out fires? Dont take this personally, but you seem to have to much invested in Blizzard for me to take anything you say seriously. I came to these forums looking for opinions other than what Blizzard is telling people.
In other words, you aren't interested in the truth? Or a practical solution? You are just looking for a reflection of what you already believe? The reality IS that WAY too many people are almost totally clueless when it comes to basic computer security. That reality is what Blizzard has to deal with on a daily basis. Its also that reality that is making the hackers job much easier than it should be.
The "reality" is that a lot of people are having problems now that didnt have any until battlenet . Blizzards "practical" solution is to charge for security because of a problem they created. Ive stated my feelings on this and choose to move on, my account expires tomorrow. You and a few others please feel free to make excuses for Blizzard and continue playing. Its strange to me how some of you people defend Blizzard like it was you significant other. To me, its just one game of many and I have no problem what so ever pulling the plug. Good luck and have fun.
Once again, correlation is not causality. Lots of people had the same types of problems before the conversion. I suspect the increasing rate of such problems was one of the reasons behind the conversion and other changes. Thanks, I shall.
Below is the following email I just received like 5 minutes ago:
Dear AionSource.com member,
It has come to our attention that during a recent attempt to hack our website, hackers may have gained access to email addresses used to register accounts here at AionSource.com. We always value your safety, and strive to maintain your trust. We've comprised a list of ways to protect yourself and what to be on the look out for. DO NOT TRUST ANY EMAIL LINK that is related to your password for Aion Online or AionSource.com, always open your browser and type in the website address manually. Also please thoroughly read our announcement regarding how to protect yourself and your passwords form phishing scams.
We value your time, and assure you we are doing everything in our power to prevent problems like this from affecting our network in the future. Your safety and ability to use our website worry-free is our top priority.
Thank you,
- AionSource.com Staff
Man this is insane, to think, there are people sitting around a computer somewhere, too lazy to get a real job so they try to ruin the fun of innocent people. I think these individuals should be tracked, after catching them they should be tried and severely punished. I received an email from the perpetrators yesterday but I knew it was a phony. This is why things like this happen, like your account getting hacked, cause of people like this.
Stolen credit cards can be used to reactivate old accounts and authenticators are free if you have the proper mobile device. Thus their cost is zero. SOE announced recently they get charged back about some crazy amount of money as a result of hackers using stolen credit cards in the gold selling industry. I think they said it was over 1 million per six months.
New accounts could be purchased with stolen credit cards or whatever, but they don't come with characters that can be used to farm gold. Why spend time leveling up a character when you have a free stream of premade characters to use?
Because a new account is not going to be suspended by Blizzard when it's rightful owner tries to take back the account. If you are only going to use the account for a couple hours, a compromised account works great because there won't be time for the user to realize the account has been compromised to do anything about it. If you are going to use the account for several months, might as well go ahead and get a new account and you can use it as long as you need, it's free either way if you use a stolen credit card.
What would that simple explanation be?
A) there is some sort of security breach at blizzard ever few months that coincides with topics such as this
-or-
Which of those options takes a gigantic leap of faith into the unknown and which one of those is a cardinal sin for account security?
Perhaps we both just view what is simple as something very different.
This isn't the first time a group of people have run around panicing "my account got hacked, Rar Rar! I don't know how it happened, Rar Rar! I'm to smart to get hacked, Rar! Rar! It must be someone else, Rar Rar!" Conspiracy, Rar Rar!.
Notice, that account hacking has been a steadily increasing problem for wow. This isn't something brand new or that blizzard hasn't been working double time to get people to secure their account credentials. It isn't like blizzard made the authenticator in anticipation of a problem.
Stolen credit cards can be used to reactivate old accounts and authenticators are free if you have the proper mobile device. Thus their cost is zero. SOE announced recently they get charged back about some crazy amount of money as a result of hackers using stolen credit cards in the gold selling industry. I think they said it was over 1 million per six months.
New accounts could be purchased with stolen credit cards or whatever, but they don't come with characters that can be used to farm gold. Why spend time leveling up a character when you have a free stream of premade characters to use?
Because a new account is not going to be suspended by Blizzard when it's rightful owner tries to take back the account. If you are only going to use the account for a couple hours, a compromised account works great because there won't be time for the user to realize the account has been compromised to do anything about it. If you are going to use the account for several months, might as well go ahead and get a new account and you can use it as long as you need, it's free either way if you use a stolen credit card.
What exactly is a hacker going to do with blank account except spam gold sales in a few cities with some level 1 characters? Where does the gold come from in doing this? Eventually the credit card owner is going to report the fraud, the money will be charged back and blizzard will ban the account. I really don't see where you are going with this or how you think gold farmers will profit from buying an empty account.
Why hack accounts instead of buying a new blank account? Some accounts have enough gold/items/tokens to be profitable to strip clean. Some don't and are better suited to farm gold via botting. Some have nothing of real value so they bot them with gold spam characters and post links on the official forums to infected websites, so it looks like legit high level characters are sharing information.
It costs money to buy a legit account that won't get banned for credit card charge back
More money to pay monthy fee
Time to level a character to the point of doing anything that could generate some gold.
Why do all that when it is quicker, cheaper and easier to just steal what they need? I really can't believe we are really having this discussion.
What would that simple explanation be?
A) there is some sort of security breach at blizzard ever few months that coincides with topics such as this
Are there posts from Blizzard every few months that they are experiencing a high volume of calls to customer service? No, there hasn't been one for a year, but they just posted one yesterday. I would think that suggests that there has been an increase lately. I don't know what has caused it, perhaps you are right and it's just a growing problem or perhaps it is unrelated to Blizzard's security, but there HAS been an increase lately. To say there hasn't been is wishful thinking at best in light of what we now know.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22748999538&sid=1
I am not saying there hasn't been an increase. It is also not the first time there has been an increase of response time due to hacked accounts. The posts I was referring to were posts just like this were people get hacked, have no idea how and find some conclusion that absolves themselves of responsibility.
There is an increase in hacked accounts during the time where many people changed their login name to something they have been spreading all over the internet for years. The same login name they most likely use for password recovery services. Was this inspiring by a stupid choice from blizzard, sure. Is it a crystal clear example of users being irresponsible with their login credentials, yes.
It is however the first time as far as I know that Blizzard has instituted a new 'care package' policy in lieu of a complete restoration of your account.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22419024395&pageNo=1&sid=1#8
It is however the first time as far as I know that Blizzard has instituted a new 'care package' policy in lieu of a complete restoration of your account.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22419024395&pageNo=1&sid=1#8
I know back in vanilla wow blizzard offered some sort of "leg up kit" for hacked accounts. I'm just curious what you think this suggests?
Something I find interesting though is people on this forum are having similar account issues with Aion and guess what conclusion they are coming to?
LINK LINK
Look how many people quickly jump to "Victim of NCSofts lack of security" and "I never do this or that and couldn't be my fault".
They said the Titanic couldn't be sunk. You see it was built with self-sealing chambers in the bottom of the ocean liner that would contain any intake of water to that particular section of the ship which would prevent the ship from sinking.
The captain of the Titanic was so convinced that it was unsinkable that on it's maiden voyage he steered it full steam ahead into an area that was known to have contained icebergs.
Unfortunately an Iceberg struck the Titanic and ripped a hole down the entire side of the vessel. The self sealing chambers did seal themselves off just as they were supposed to but the hole was so large that many of the self sealing chambers filled up. As more and more of the chambers filled with sea water, the ship started to list to one side. When that happened the water in the self sealing chambers started to spill over the tops of the chambers and spilled into additional chambers that would have otherwise stayed dry. The result was that the Titanic eventually took on enough water and sunk.
What they SHOULD have said was that the odds of the Titanic sinking were VERY LARGE. Only because the captain considered the Titanic unsinkable did it actually sink. If he would have used caution in an iceberg filled area and slowed the ship down to a safe speed, most likely the Titanic would not have sunk when it hit the iceberg, the self-sealing chambers would have worked as expected.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana
I know what the OP is talking about, assuming he's innocent. I have never been hi-jacked in my 18 or so years of gaming until recently. I hadn't played World of Warcraft in months, my account was inactive blah blah. Then, I get an e-mail from Blizzard out of nowhere saying that I have been spamming in chats and then another claiming I have been banned for selling in-game currency.
However, it got reversed and I still have my account (got a free month too) and had to get my Priest restored. All is well, though, however I never had these problems before Battle.Net accounts.. so you might have to wonder. It's a good thing I don't really care for WoW anymore, however I do care for other upcoming titles and hope things like this are resolved.
It is however the first time as far as I know that Blizzard has instituted a new 'care package' policy in lieu of a complete restoration of your account.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22419024395&pageNo=1&sid=1#8
I know back in vanilla wow blizzard offered some sort of "leg up kit" for hacked accounts. I'm just curious what you think this suggests?
I hadn't heard of it before. If you can provide a link or at least some details then that would refute my assertion that this is the first time something like this has happened.
The only people that are saying something is impossible are the players. Sure anything is possible, but there is a mountain of information and clear history of player fault that needs to be ignored to get to that unlikely possibility.
This same exact conversation is going on in the aion forums, but then again it is mathematically possible that both companies had major security brake downs and all those players that keep repeating the same security misinformation are right that they are invulnerable to getting hacked.
Nice analogy though. It doesn't really change anything, but still a decent analogy.
Prior to Battlenet registration my account "name' was a random mish-mash of numbers and letters I had written down on a card in my wallet. Then came battlenet. I was asked to use an email as my "sign on". Hmmm.... Which email should I use? The one I use for junk sites so my main email does not get junk mail? Or the lesser used one that I have used for my main email? I chose the latter. I have used this Email address for 12 years. I have also used it to create accounts on various forums (including this one). I had used my WoW log in name for absolutely NOTHING.
In my internet travels over the years I have subscribed to many fan sites (like this one) downloaded add -ons, and F2P games...always being careful for suspicious activity and trying to make sure an add on or web site was "legit". Not once in 12 years had I been "hacked".
If a hacker managed to compromise any website of or relating to Video games...specifically mmo's , then he would have access to EMAIL ADDRESSES. Email addresses in and of themselves would be relatively useless unless they happen to also be a method of signing on to BATTLE.NET. With 11 million subscribers there is a decent chance that if you find an email address on an mmorpg web sight that you have potentially discovered a sign on for an account. Now all you need is to hack the password somehow, either by phishing or brute force or other means. Getting the account Sign on is half the battle. The arguement here has been that using email address has made it easier for hackers to gain access to accounts.
I can assure you nobody knew my sign on prior to the switch over to battle.net. Heck half the time I couldn't remember it myself and had to refer to the card in my wallet.
How are they going to get a password to an account that they can't find in the first place?
See what I mean?
Edit: I just don't understand how anyone could argue that:
1) going from personal sign ons to email addresses could NOT compromise security
2) that the recent spat of compromised accounts (especially inactive accounts) does not have something to do with the recent switch to battle.net.
I'm currently going to make a new email account with a similar mish mash of numbers for the sole purpose of making it my sign on for WoW. I wish I had done that in the first place.
Maybe they hacked into that dam mountain dew web site (battlebot).
who knows.