Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Warning to WOW Players (Compromised Accounts)
Renoaku
Member EpicPosts: 3,157
This is just a warning for any of those who own a World OF Warcraft account. Today 1/29/2010 I recived an email noticing that my account was closed/banned. I Immediately refered to it, and tried to login to world of warcraft to find that my account had someone illegally add a (KEY Authinticator to it) And I could not even login to my account. So I chcked on wow armory to see my account Enchanting 300-400 Was GONE. Someone used it to aparently Bot and mine a lot of stuff without my concent. My account was deactivated for months, So someone had to have re activated it VIA Time Card, or Credit Card. I also find that many of my high level 70 Gear GONE from my account, and My skills/stats all changed.
SO as a warning for any of those who have been gone awhile from World OF Warcraft, Please Update your Passwords, and Maybe add yourself an Authinticator to help protect yourselfs. As for me I am on the phone with blizzard on hold right now real life, and taking all the steps to recover my account. However I do not know how this is going to go for me as this is the second time it has happend to me. I have checked and confirmed that there were nothing on my end to cause compromise. No Trojans or Virus of any type. The breaches appear to be from Blizzards Security, or Brute Forced attacks, as the account had no Key Authinticator on it.
http://us.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Korialstrasz&cn=Lavagirl My Account after it was Hacked, and Stripped.
Comments
Just call blizzard tell them what happened, they will give you your account back with everything it had. Might take a while, but it is worth it.
the current theory going around is Bliz is fucking with accounts to cause the scare they need to push their plans to force authenticators on all accounts....seems to be working too.
Unaffected people don't really get pushed to do this by this 'scare', mostly only the affected ones. They are still all calling in to the helpdesks etc straining the system, and that's the only relief for Blizzard the authenticators give to begin with (they're so cheap it's not an issue of profit, they probably made more profit in one day on character transfers alone than they will on Authenticators ever).
If the scare didn't happen the only difference would be that the same afflicted people would be spread over a longer time period, less strain on the helpdesk, and still people slowly getting authenticators.
The only purpose I could see for this 'scare' is to make a great push for the authenticators, yet there's no apparent reason for them to do so.
Unaffected people don't really get pushed to do this by this 'scare', mostly only the affected ones. They are still all calling in to the helpdesks etc straining the system, and that's the only relief for Blizzard the authenticators give to begin with (they're so cheap it's not an issue of profit, they probably made more profit in one day on character transfers alone than they will on Authenticators ever).
If the scare didn't happen the only difference would be that the same afflicted people would be spread over a longer time period, less strain on the helpdesk, and still people slowly getting authenticators.
The only purpose I could see for this 'scare' is to make a great push for the authenticators, yet there's no apparent reason for them to do so.
I don't think it's a scare or some kind of tactic to get people to buy Authenticators, but something unfair is happening. I can understand how people who are still happily playing on their accounts with no problem would look and this and say "Oh obviously you guys all got hacked or had a key logger on you computer."
Well guess what that is NOT what happened in my own case and it seems pretty obvious to me that a lot of other people are frustrated about the same BS happening to them! Not all of us are complete morons, oblivious to computer and online security as most of you seem to think.
I was hacked and Blizzard gave me 5k gold in stuff to make up for it.
I' am not scared.
"The question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I, or the others crazy?" - Albert Einstein
I'm not one usually for tinfoil hat theories, but it is curious the vast amount of accounts being compromised as of late.
A handful is unfortunate, and attributable to end user error.
The vast number that seem to be happening recently though makes that a little less believable. Yes there are stupid people, but usually not that many simultaneously. I get what others are saying about it being end user error, and I am usually the first one to call someone out when they cry "hax0rz!", but this is just too many at one time to make that reasonably believable. People that have been gaming for over a decade without security issues are now suddenly finding themselves with compromised accounts? You aren't able to keep yourself safe for that long and then suddenly become stupid. Oddly enough you became stupid at the same time many others have and at the same time there is a switch over to B-net. Too many coincidences to be believable.
After reading numerous amounts of these threads here and on other websites, appearances certainly seem to suggest the breach is at Blizzards end whether it be an unscrupulous employee or a cracked database issue.
It will be curious how this plays out., if at all, or if it quietly goes away.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
I have notice that alot of the people getting hacked are those who quit WoW before the B-net linking.
I also got hacked before the linking. Dont know how the hacker found out my Password and PW question. Both were random and had nothing to do with any PW I use else were.
Somehow the hacker broke into my E-mail as well.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3362852/thread/267617#3362852
I made a thread here as well
This EXACT same thing happened to me on 1/6/2010
I recently got my account back. They hacked my INACTIVE account, leveled my characters, and deleted my professions. It was bizarre because my account was inactive for months and i get an email stating i was banned for the use of "hacks".
I contacted Blizzard and they investigated the situation and gave me back my account a few days ago.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/267126/page/5
alot of people having this problem
I don't know where you live...but uhhh...wanna guess what Im gonna say next?
Perhaps it is also realistic to assume a phishing or some other type of hacking attempt was performed en masse...Thereby effecting many people...at the same time. I'm not saying blame people for being careless necessarily, Im just saying you cant protect yourself from something you aren't aware of (assuming its clever enough).
But people do tend to get careless when doing the same thing repeatedly with no interference or problems....like backing out of the driveway for example (oops that trash can wasnt there last night). I have a feeling the answer lies somewhere in the middle...
anyway .02
That already rules out Blizzard since they don't have info on your email password and you just said they were different.
I don't know where you live...but uhhh...wanna guess what Im gonna say next?
Perhaps it is also realistic to assume a phishing or some other type of hacking attempt was performed en masse...Thereby effecting many people...at the same time. I'm not saying blame people for being careless necessarily, Im just saying you cant protect yourself from something you aren't aware of (assuming its clever enough).
But people do tend to get careless when doing the same thing repeatedly with no interference or problems....like backing out of the driveway for example (oops that trash can wasnt there last night). I have a feeling the answer lies somewhere in the middle...
anyway .02
Take for example Aion. Just shortly a fansite was hacked, and their email database was lifted to use a phishing scam (they think they're already witnessed one). That's certainly going to increase the number of stupid people clicking on those links.
It's not all demand, it's supply as well.
I sometimes feel like I'm the only one who DIDN'T get his account details stolen somehow when playing that game.
Looks like one of mine is gone too (retail box, never been shared). So how can a hacker grab an account and convert it to battle.net without even getting a notice sent to the linked e-mail address? Its been frozen a year, the linked e-mail is still mine, there's been no notice of anything*... but I'm locked out.
There should be some sort of paper trail for when the hacker did the battle.net conversion.
Ken
* correction: I did receive an offer for 7 days free gametime, but I ignored it.
www.ActionMMORPG.com
One man, a small pile of money, and the screwball idea of a DIY Indie MMORPG? Yep, that's him. ~sigh~
I don't know where you live...but uhhh...wanna guess what Im gonna say next?
Perhaps it is also realistic to assume a phishing or some other type of hacking attempt was performed en masse...Thereby effecting many people...at the same time. I'm not saying blame people for being careless necessarily, Im just saying you cant protect yourself from something you aren't aware of (assuming its clever enough).
But people do tend to get careless when doing the same thing repeatedly with no interference or problems....like backing out of the driveway for example (oops that trash can wasnt there last night). I have a feeling the answer lies somewhere in the middle...
anyway .02
Nice job taking my point out of context.
The fact remains that it is a bit too much of a coincidence that all these accounts are getting compromised at the same time the switch to Bnet took place.
Check my post history, I am not kind to people that claim hax0rz! I am usually one of the first and harshest to blame the end user for their stupidity. But there are simply too many people having this problem and conveniently at the same time the Bnet switch took place.
I don't know why it is so hard to believe Blizzards d-base may have been compromised. It has happened to numerous big name banks which have much more at stake than Blizzard. If it can happen to them, it can happen to Blizzard, period.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
That already rules out Blizzard since they don't have info on your email password and you just said they were different.
You wouldnt per chance be an attorney employed by Blizzard would you? The reason I ask is that you are strongly entrenched on the "its everyones fault except Blizzard" team.
I don't know where you live...but uhhh...wanna guess what Im gonna say next?
Perhaps it is also realistic to assume a phishing or some other type of hacking attempt was performed en masse...Thereby effecting many people...at the same time. I'm not saying blame people for being careless necessarily, Im just saying you cant protect yourself from something you aren't aware of (assuming its clever enough).
But people do tend to get careless when doing the same thing repeatedly with no interference or problems....like backing out of the driveway for example (oops that trash can wasnt there last night). I have a feeling the answer lies somewhere in the middle...
anyway .02
Nice job taking my point out of context.
The fact remains that it is a bit too much of a coincidence that all these accounts are getting compromised at the same time the switch to Bnet took place.
Check my post history, I am not kind to people that claim hax0rz! I am usually one of the first and harshest to blame the end user for their stupidity. But there are simply too many people having this problem and conveniently at the same time the Bnet switch took place.
I don't know why it is so hard to believe Blizzards d-base may have been compromised. It has happened to numerous big name banks which have much more at stake than Blizzard. If it can happen to them, it can happen to Blizzard, period.
This also why it could have been a mass phishing.Blizzard announced the cutoff date for needing to merge with Bnet.Someone using that date to their advantage for a mass phishing seems a strong possibility at this point.
Except I've never received any type of phishing e-mail.
-iCeh
I think we should keep this post going... as it happend to me on my WoW account in Jan also... the person/persons who did this used an authenticator on mine as I had a core hound puppy (only gotten with an authenticator) on my account when I finally got in... it took almost 2 weeks to get my items back ( not complaining as it is work to track things down) My brotrher sent me an authenticator for me to log in now so hopefully this wont happen again... heres the trouble i run into.. It has left a VERY bad taste in my mouth from this.. I couldnt play my main characters for awhile as they had EVERYthing that was sellable sold... so it left them (the 2 80 characters) like worthless.. so i played lower characters I had in the mean time... so now i have this authenticator and I have my items but now I just have a hard time getin back into playing... always thinking that SOMEONE on this server (probably lots) are trying to get to our toons constantly... this NEVER happened with our other login and I have heard it many times over that this past month after the Battlenet crossover that MANY accounts were compromised... Bottom line is I have lost the will to play this ... maybe I need a change or something but this whole thing has messed with my head...
The big reason why these issues are all user side-
If Blizzard itself was hacked, 2 main things would have happened/made massive public news by now. First, 11million peoples CC/personal info would have been stolen. You'd be seeing a lot more than just "missing gold/gear", you'd be seeing hundreds and thousands of illegal transactions along with identity theft on an epidemic scale. This is also something that one a similar scale must be publicly announced/reported.
Second, a real, working copy of SC2 or D3 would have been leaked onto the torrent sites of the world. Because really, if Blizzard was hacked, and the only thing of worth the hacker took was your gold and gear, and not any of the far, far more valuable information Blizz would have available, that hacker would be one of the most pathetic, unimaginatize ponces I'd ever heard of.
In the wonderful, relative world of things, each individual is a mere spec of dust just in the scope of WoW. Say 100,000 accounts were hacked recently, and say roughly 5mil total users not counting china, thats about 2%. Now, what'd really be fun to see are the actual numbers of compromised accounts that they could prove bought gold, got powerleveled, were shared/traded between people and compare that to trojan/phising/virii attack victims. That should cause some fun times.
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
My second account was hacked two weeks ago. I was actually online while it was being hacked but because of the authenticator being added I couldn't do anything about it. I contacted a GM but didn't hear from them until two days later. I called them but got a message to call back later because of high call volume.
Last week they took the authenticator off my account and gave me a few pieces of my gear back on three of my 80's and a couple lower level toons. They left me without gear in half my spots on all my toon until two days ago they gave me some greens to add to them.
The hacker also cleared out my guild bank taking 6300gold from me and four tabs of valuable items (enchanting mats, gems, etc..). None of the items have been restored.
The hackers walked away with over 20k gold worth of items and ~10k gold from all my characters.
Getting hacked is one thing, but being able to actually follow them around Wintergrasp while they farm ore on your toon is another.
Well from what i have seen and heard it also happened to me i had some miscellanous character's deleted and some stuff ripped off of my main tunes which co-incidentally are on the same server as alot of others having this problem server in question is one of a few (Korialstrasz). Alot of accounts are coming from this server i know at least 5-7 others just out of friends i know online that have had similar stuff happen to them over the past few months.
What is bugging me more is the fact that many more hacked accounts popped up after this Battlenet change over... we now use our Email addresses... I dont like this one bit... I got my things back like i said but it still leaves a bad taste all around and they got another 8 bucks for the authenticator... and thats a blizzard thing...
after seeing all the hacked accounts recently i checked mine on the armory they all had their gear and everything still. i haven't played wow in over a year i just don't like the idea of some scumbag gold seller raping my hard work.but i never changed my account over to the battlenet thing so probably why i'm still safe.
Of those who've had their accounts compromised, who has visited curse.com?
Every now and then I still check mmo-champion to see what's new with WoW, I remember seeing an addon they were pimping called NPC scan, I thought I'd add it to my bookmarks for if I ever went back. This is the only way I can think of that could have gotten me a keylogger (if that's what's happened.)
-iCeh