I had a email that i used for years that i didnt ever attach to a game. i allways made new emails for games that way each game would have a different email. after i attached this email to battle.net for my star craft game i started getting fishing emails saying my " wow acount " was being compromised click the link to fix it blah blah blah. i dont even have a wow acount but it showed me battlenet isnt secure at all.
Originally posted by hellsnot Really? Selling at cost? That is laughable and so is shipping and handling its mailed in a damn envelope us postal service
So I'm guessing you didn't use google?
Here, I'll google for you, while I'm at it, I'll mention FFXI, who had authenticators FIRST, sold them for 11 dollars.... AT COST.
So...
Heres the link, this is the website that manufactures them. Feel free to complain to them.
Since Blizzard doesn't MAKE them, and they sell them AT COST from ANOTHER company, are you going to change your story?
Oh ya that's another thing as soon as I put my email into battle.net the spam started spam in the form of links via chat messages. From junk email address's
Since Blizzard doesn't MAKE them, and they sell them AT COST from ANOTHER company, are you going to change your story?
You mean will hater use logic and be reasonable? Never! Blizzard hacked him because he knows. And You are fanboi if You dare to use words like responsibility or nonsence. Eh wish world was so simple for me
There are numerous possible reasons but I suspect the most basic reason for any hack is the prime suspect. Lots of lucrative targets. It's the same reason most Malmare effectsWindows based systems more often than Apple or Linux.
This, a thousand times this.
If you are going to try to randomly phish someone, why would you try to phish for a less popular game, and thereby less likely for you to be successful.
They are targeting the largest audience, for obvious reasons.
Originally posted by hellsnot Really? Selling at cost? That is laughable and so is shipping and handling its mailed in a damn envelope us postal service
Have you ever looked at what these things cost? I managed a RSA SecurID system for a company several years ago and we paid more than twice what the Blizzard charges for these things and we didn't get custom graphics on ours. Granted we were buying them a thousand or so at a time but still. Plus, that's not even counting the license costs for the backend hardware which is a pretty heafty yearly recuring expense for Blizzard I'm sure not to mention all the Web site/database intergration work and support requirements. And don't forget that "free" app for smart phones isn't really free for Blizzard since they still have to pay a per user license fee for the tech.
I'm not a Blizzard fan and I'm not currently playing any Blizzard games but I do believe them when they say they sell those things at cost. In fact I pretty sure Blizzard looses money on the whole system. But then again they can aford to and it's good PR.
I had a blizzard authenticator on my iphone and I never got hacked with ANY blizzard game. So. Here's a thought. You could avoid all this by going to random ass websites on your smart phone that could potentially hack your authenticator on your phone (Yes it is doable) and also probably refrain from visiting websites that could install keyloggers on your computer that could potentially leading to your account getting hacked.
Originally posted by hellsnot Really? Selling at cost? That is laughable and so is shipping and handling its mailed in a damn envelope us postal service
Have you ever looked at what these things cost? I managed a RSA SecurID system for a company several years ago and we paid more than twice what the Blizzard charges for these things and we didn't get custom graphics on ours. Granted we were buying them a thousand or so at a time but still. Plus, that's not even counting the license costs for the backend hardware which is a pretty heafty yearly recuring expense for Blizzard I'm sure not to mention all the Web site/database intergration work and support requirements. And don't forget that "free" app for smart phones isn't really free for Blizzard since they still have to pay a per user license fee to RSA for the tech.
I'm not a Blizzard fan and I'm not currently playing any Blizzard games but I do believe them when they say they sell those things at cost. In fact I pretty suret Blizzard looses money on the whole system.
Yeah if you check out the company that manufactures these things they mention they offer bulk discounts, I remember WoW having run out of physical authenticators before, so I'd have to imagine they bought A LOT, and all of them sold. I remember they used to be 6 dollars even, now they're 6.50, I bet Blizz just bought a huge lot of em, but not as many as the first time, I mean I doubt they expect as many to be needed as have already been used at this point.
Originally posted by hellsnot Really? Selling at cost? That is laughable and so is shipping and handling its mailed in a damn envelope us postal service
So I'm guessing you didn't use google?
Here, I'll google for you, while I'm at it, I'll mention FFXI, who had authenticators FIRST, sold them for 11 dollars.... AT COST.
So...
Heres the link, this is the website that manufactures them. Feel free to complain to them.
Since Blizzard doesn't MAKE them, and they sell them AT COST from ANOTHER company, are you going to change your story?
I run a buisness and everytime i talk to a client i lie about what my costs are lol your link or info means nothing they are made in a china sweatshop for 2 pennies and sold for 75-90 cents FURTHER MORE if there is a problem with their security and people NEED authenticators there is a endless plethera of successful client side security options readily availible from pin codes to thumb scanners. ALSO i got an authenticator and have logged iunto my battle.net account from THREE different ip address's AND changed my email+pw TWICE and have yet to be promted for any authentication THERE IS SOMETHING GOING ON AT BLIZZARD either they are to blame directly for it or they are not disclosing a breach.
Also the Diablo 3 servers dont necessarily need to be online for your account to get compromised. No I'm not a blizzard fanboy. I quit playing their games a year ago cause they devoured part of my sould but still.
You don't need to have spywares and stuff. I got hacked one time.... They forced into my email account. They didn't change my email password, but added a secondary email adress to retrieve the account should I change my email password again. Of course I removed it once I noticed what they did. But because they had control over my email account, they were able to log into my battlenet account and strip my characters of their gold.
About your email account, do a simple search on keywords like "password" or "blizzard". Or just enter that email on battlenet to retrieve a password and voilà. You don't even need their game servers to be up to do it. In fact, the hackers may even wait for those servers to be down so users might only notice they are being hacked once it's too late.
Your own digital security relies on a chain of more or less reliable links. Do you check your facebook through your smartphone? Do you use public wifi? Are all of your passwords secure (emails, forums, games, ...)? The Blizzard authenticator is one more safeguard to your battlenet account. Physical or the smartphone one are about the same (I'm not talking about the SMS one, but the authenticator app you can download for free).
Originally posted by hellsnot Really? Selling at cost? That is laughable and so is shipping and handling its mailed in a damn envelope us postal service
So I'm guessing you didn't use google?
Here, I'll google for you, while I'm at it, I'll mention FFXI, who had authenticators FIRST, sold them for 11 dollars.... AT COST.
So...
Heres the link, this is the website that manufactures them. Feel free to complain to them.
Since Blizzard doesn't MAKE them, and they sell them AT COST from ANOTHER company, are you going to change your story?
I run a buisness and everytime i talk to a client i lie about what my costs are lol your link or info means nothing they are made in a china sweatshop for 2 pennies and sold for 75-90 cents FURTHER MORE if there is a problem with their security and people NEED authenticators there is a endless plethera of successful client side security options readily availible from pin codes to thumb scanners. ALSO i got an authenticator and have logged iunto my battle.net account from THREE different ip address's AND changed my email+pw TWICE and have yet to be promted for any authentication THERE IS SOMETHING GOING ON AT BLIZZARD either they are to blame directly for it or they are not disclosing a breach.
You can claim what ever you'd like, yet we see absolutely no proof... You offhandedly dismiss that AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT COMPANY makes the product than Blizzard, and yet SOMEHOW Blizzard has some EVIL SCHEME to make you pay out the nose for these things.
When other companies make you pay more.
And OTHER companies offer the exact same authenticator, from the same company...
http://buy.swtor.com/us/#optional-game-add-ons Here is Bioware's version, same company, same authenticator, for $4.00. They clearly bought MORE of them, and as we all know SWTOR was the most expensive (and costly) mmo, its not hard to imagine them ordering a plethora of them and selling them at cost as well.
I don't use facebook I don't want a f****** app for my phone no 1 used my email account and I am pretty sure servers need to be online for someone to access your account and take items its pretty freakin simple you shouldn't need an authenticator or an app there is something wrong at blizzard
Originally posted by hellsnot And yet not one self righteous fanboi will even acknowledge I was compromised while servers were offline
You sure the servers where really down and it wasn't that your machine was blocking connections to Blizzard's game servers to give the hackers time to take your stuff? That would be trival to do if someone can get a executable on your machine.
Get you to install a executable on your machine that has administrative rights to run (in memory or as a service)
Use a keylogger and/or screen scrapper to pull the authentication information for your blizzard account
Reconfigure your machine to block all traffic to the login/game servers so you get a server down error.
Login and steal your stuff
Reconfigure your machine back so the servers "come back up"
Originally posted by hellsnot I don't use facebook I don't want a f****** app for my phone no 1 used my email account and I am pretty sure servers need to be online for someone to access your account and take items its pretty freakin simple you shouldn't need an authenticator or an app there is something wrong at blizzard
You were the one who suggested it was to sell authentiators... it was post 4 in this thread.
As to being hacked offline, extremely unlikely.
Blizzard is going around hacking their own customers while servers are offline, do you realize how this sounds?
For one its pretty much fraud, and the FTC would be all over them like butter on bread.
Originally posted by hellsnot And yet not one self righteous fanboi will even acknowledge I was compromised while servers were offline
Of course not. Did you actually expect them to?
Probably because the entire thing about Blizzard doing this to their customers is freaking assinine... Do you honestly think a company would do such a thing purposefully to its own customer base?
And also it is hard to feel for empathy when you use the same service but have not experienced the things the OP claims. My WoW account was compromised three times but it all stopped after I got an authenticator...go figure...
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Who cares if you get hacked in diablo 3...the game is so bad its hard to even care. The game should have been released April 1st, at least that way the joke would have been on us.
Well, and I don't buy in to the conspiracy of the OP at all, but thats a market in the region of 20kk to 40kk you're dismissing so out of hand.
Yes.. so factor in the costs to produce the authenticator, then store it, package it and ship it.
On the other side factor in the PR hit the company has taken and the likely impact not just on sales of Diablo 3 but also on WoW (new expansion on the way) and most importantly on their upcoming "Titan" MMO.
So yes, to propose that Blizzard intentionally sabotaged on of their billion dollar IPs to sell a $6 authenticator is ludicrous.
You can certainly argue that the security vulnerability is on Blizzards side. To argue that it is part of their master plan is just silly.
whoa, easy tiger...
I am not 'arguing' anything. Like I said, I don't buy in to the conspiracy theory here at all, I was just pointing out that there was a lot of money involved in those $6 validators you are being so flippent about.
I think you need to respond to what's said, rather then what you want to be have said.
No, if YOU actually go back and read what you originally responded to, it was a response in context of saying that the company was "hacking" it's own players to drive it's $6 authenticator. Effectively jeopardizing it's billion dollar IPs to make theoretical single digit million dollar profits on an authenticator.
...to which I answered that I didn't agree with the conspiracy... Did you even read before posting?
Why the hostile reponse? It seems you just want to argue
IF blizz had been hacked you'd have known about it. When big companies get hacked, the people that did the hacking brag about it. When Sony got hacked and was down for days, you knew about it. When Iran's nuke program got hacked, you knew about it.
When and if the company that makes the most popular MMORPG gets hacked for real, you'll know about it.
The idea that blizz would intentionally hack themselves is ludicrous. Imagine the fallout from the press and consumers. How many people would ever trust them again? Plus the legal ramifications, you think the executives running blizz would risk going to jail over stupid shit?
Get real. I played WoW for 7 years, have the iphone authenticator, have set the option in my bnet account settings to only allow logins from my current location.
There is no conspiracy theory. There is only your inability to not keep your account secure. Hell I almost fell for it a month ago. I got an email stating I got invited to the MoP beta. I clicked the link but thankfully was on my iphone and saw that it was a fake page. I normally always hold my finger on any WoW related link to see what page it leads to and it's usually something like worldofwarcraf1.blizzard.tk.net-account.tk or something stupid like that. I don't know why I didn't this time. Since then I get 3 or 4 fake beta invites a week.
You failed to secure your own account. Bottom line.
Do you honestly think a company would do such a thing purposefully to its own customer base?
And also it is hard to feel for empathy when you use the same service but have not experienced the things the OP claims. My WoW account was compromised three times but it all stopped after I got an authenticator...go figure...
Dont know and dont care about what Blizzard does, but when you say "a" company I assume you mean any company yea? In that case, Atlantica Online run by NDoors (back in the days) was constantly hacked left and right. No hyperbole intended here but people lost over $500 worth of game/cash shop junk constantly (and sometimes repeatedly). I know this because people from my Nation (something like an alliance of guilds) ended up losing lots, were not compensated by NDoors and therefore quit the game.
No fucking way people could get hacked over and over again, even after resetting passwords and virtual keyboard PINs, if there wasnt a serverside leak. It could be somewhat of a similar problem on Blizzard's side here. Not saying Blizzard would be doing this on Purpose(as per OP), but to rule out the possibilty of any problems on Blizzard's end is what is truly assine. Not talking especially about you, but throwing out a blanket statement for the fanboys to burn and piss on.
And FYI, I stopped playing Blizzard games around 6-7 years ago, and my BNet account got hacked (or so said a mail from Blizzard) sometime last year. Sender ID and all seemed legit, and it had no false link that would redirect me to phishing sites but asked me to directly log to my account via Blizzard's site. Havent played a Bnet game for years, havent logged into my accounts for years, havent installed a Blizzard game on my new PC(for years). Go figure...?
I highly doubt Blizzard is stupid enough to commit crimes like those that have been postulated in this thread.
It's funny how people would rather believe Blizzard is stealing/has been breached, and not that their own PC is infected (AVG Free Edition does not guarantee a safe computer).
Originally posted by RainBringer No fucking way people could get hacked over and over again, even after resetting passwords and virtual keyboard PINs, if there wasnt a serverside leak.
Do you honestly think a company would do such a thing purposefully to its own customer base?
And also it is hard to feel for empathy when you use the same service but have not experienced the things the OP claims. My WoW account was compromised three times but it all stopped after I got an authenticator...go figure...
Dont know and dont care about what Blizzard does, but when you say "a" company I assume you mean any company yea? In that case, Atlantica Online run by NDoors (back in the days) was constantly hacked left and right. No hyperbole intended here but people lost over $500 worth of game/cash shop junk constantly (and sometimes repeatedly). I know this because people from my Nation (something like an alliance of guilds) ended up losing lots, were not compensated by NDoors and therefore quit the game.
No fucking way people could get hacked over and over again, even after resetting passwords and virtual keyboard PINs, if there wasnt a serverside leak. It could be somewhat of a similar problem on Blizzard's side here. Not saying Blizzard would be doing this on Purpose(as per OP), but to rule out the possibilty of any problems on Blizzard's end is what is truly assine. Not talking especially about you, but throwing out a blanket statement for the fanboys to burn and piss on.
And FYI, I stopped playing Blizzard games around 6-7 years ago, and my BNet account got hacked (or so said a mail from Blizzard) sometime last year. Sender ID and all seemed legit, and it had no false link that would redirect me to phishing sites but asked me to directly log to my account via Blizzard's site. Havent played a Bnet game for years, havent logged into my accounts for years, havent installed a Blizzard game on my new PC(for years). Go figure...?
When my account was inactive for about a year it was hacked as well. But it all stopped when I got the authenticator.
As far as Atlantica Online, when I said "a" company I was referring to Blizzard of course. Could care less about Atlantica Online, tried it once and it wasn't for me, so if you guys lost all that stuff it is a shame.
In the grand shceme of things, to think that Blizzard is doing this, and here is the KEY WORD from my post, PURPOSEFULLY, is ridiculous. What would they stand to gain? If there is a problem on their end there is a problem on their end. It doesn't mean they are out to get you, what ar they going to do with the gold or items they take anyway? Sell them to themselves?
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this. Usually when I talk to people they're like blah blah you got keylogged. NO I didn't. I run a clean system, I have a computer science degree I'm not an idiot, most of my friends are similar and I'm not the only one that's gotten their account stolen on wow, I've had at least 3-5 people I know of that are computer literate have this happen.
I know it's cash farmers that are too lazy to make their own money, no doubt about that. Ever since they got in the one time that email constantly receives phishing scam emails for a wide variety of games, like I'm really stupid enough to fall for that. But yeah I really think there's some kind of security loophole in blizzard's servers that has been wide open for a long time or something. The problems are entirely too rampant with literate people getting it done to them.
One of my other thoughts too is that maybe it's fansites. Bliz's games have a lot of fansites and a lot of smaller ones might be getting their account databases compromised without knowing and without having proper security, even weak security, on their passwords.
I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this. Usually when I talk to people they're like blah blah you got keylogged. NO I didn't. I run a clean system, I have a computer science degree I'm not an idiot, most of my friends are similar and I'm not the only one that's gotten their account stolen on wow, I've had at least 3-5 people I know of that are computer literate have this happen.
I know it's cash farmers that are too lazy to make their own money, no doubt about that. Ever since they got in the one time that email constantly receives phishing scam emails for a wide variety of games, like I'm really stupid enough to fall for that. But yeah I really think there's some kind of security loophole in blizzard's servers that has been wide open for a long time or something. The problems are entirely too rampant with literate people getting it done to them.
One of my other thoughts too is that maybe it's fansites. Bliz's games have a lot of fansites and a lot of smaller ones might be getting their account databases compromised without knowing and without having proper security, even weak security, on their passwords.
It is possible that Blizzard's authentication servers have been compromised but it's not really likely. There is so much money to be made off of Blizzard accounts that if there was a open compromise against the Blizzard authentication servers we would see much more of a issue than exists. I won't rule out the idea of some form of session ID hack but I also haven't heard of anything other than hearsay (and poorly formed at that) to back up that charge either.
The simplist answer is usally the right one and the simplist answer is Blizzard accounts are so valuable (especially now that they tie both WoW and D3 together in a single username) that they are high prioirty targets. Why go after bank accounts and credit card numbers (which have layers of protection on them to stop stealing) when you make just as much if not more on average by compromising Blizzard accounts which don't carry the same jail time?
I know for a fact that fansites are a issue. Either the fansite is run with good intentions but lack security or it's run by people who intentionaly use it to farm account information. If you use the same email address, password, security question, etc. on a fan site as you do on the game that sites supports you honestly deserve to your account stolen if for nothing else as a object leason.
Comments
I had a email that i used for years that i didnt ever attach to a game. i allways made new emails for games that way each game would have a different email. after i attached this email to battle.net for my star craft game i started getting fishing emails saying my " wow acount " was being compromised click the link to fix it blah blah blah. i dont even have a wow acount but it showed me battlenet isnt secure at all.
So I'm guessing you didn't use google?
Here, I'll google for you, while I'm at it, I'll mention FFXI, who had authenticators FIRST, sold them for 11 dollars.... AT COST.
So...
Heres the link, this is the website that manufactures them. Feel free to complain to them.
Since Blizzard doesn't MAKE them, and they sell them AT COST from ANOTHER company, are you going to change your story?
You mean will hater use logic and be reasonable? Never! Blizzard hacked him because he knows. And You are fanboi if You dare to use words like responsibility or nonsence. Eh wish world was so simple for me
This, a thousand times this.
If you are going to try to randomly phish someone, why would you try to phish for a less popular game, and thereby less likely for you to be successful.
They are targeting the largest audience, for obvious reasons.
Have you ever looked at what these things cost? I managed a RSA SecurID system for a company several years ago and we paid more than twice what the Blizzard charges for these things and we didn't get custom graphics on ours. Granted we were buying them a thousand or so at a time but still. Plus, that's not even counting the license costs for the backend hardware which is a pretty heafty yearly recuring expense for Blizzard I'm sure not to mention all the Web site/database intergration work and support requirements. And don't forget that "free" app for smart phones isn't really free for Blizzard since they still have to pay a per user license fee for the tech.
I'm not a Blizzard fan and I'm not currently playing any Blizzard games but I do believe them when they say they sell those things at cost. In fact I pretty sure Blizzard looses money on the whole system. But then again they can aford to and it's good PR.
I had a blizzard authenticator on my iphone and I never got hacked with ANY blizzard game. So. Here's a thought. You could avoid all this by going to random ass websites on your smart phone that could potentially hack your authenticator on your phone (Yes it is doable) and also probably refrain from visiting websites that could install keyloggers on your computer that could potentially leading to your account getting hacked.
proof?
Yeah if you check out the company that manufactures these things they mention they offer bulk discounts, I remember WoW having run out of physical authenticators before, so I'd have to imagine they bought A LOT, and all of them sold. I remember they used to be 6 dollars even, now they're 6.50, I bet Blizz just bought a huge lot of em, but not as many as the first time, I mean I doubt they expect as many to be needed as have already been used at this point.
I run a buisness and everytime i talk to a client i lie about what my costs are lol your link or info means nothing they are made in a china sweatshop for 2 pennies and sold for 75-90 cents FURTHER MORE if there is a problem with their security and people NEED authenticators there is a endless plethera of successful client side security options readily availible from pin codes to thumb scanners. ALSO i got an authenticator and have logged iunto my battle.net account from THREE different ip address's AND changed my email+pw TWICE and have yet to be promted for any authentication THERE IS SOMETHING GOING ON AT BLIZZARD either they are to blame directly for it or they are not disclosing a breach.
Also the Diablo 3 servers dont necessarily need to be online for your account to get compromised. No I'm not a blizzard fanboy. I quit playing their games a year ago cause they devoured part of my sould but still.
You don't need to have spywares and stuff. I got hacked one time.... They forced into my email account. They didn't change my email password, but added a secondary email adress to retrieve the account should I change my email password again. Of course I removed it once I noticed what they did. But because they had control over my email account, they were able to log into my battlenet account and strip my characters of their gold.
About your email account, do a simple search on keywords like "password" or "blizzard". Or just enter that email on battlenet to retrieve a password and voilà. You don't even need their game servers to be up to do it. In fact, the hackers may even wait for those servers to be down so users might only notice they are being hacked once it's too late.
Your own digital security relies on a chain of more or less reliable links. Do you check your facebook through your smartphone? Do you use public wifi? Are all of your passwords secure (emails, forums, games, ...)? The Blizzard authenticator is one more safeguard to your battlenet account. Physical or the smartphone one are about the same (I'm not talking about the SMS one, but the authenticator app you can download for free).
You can claim what ever you'd like, yet we see absolutely no proof... You offhandedly dismiss that AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT COMPANY makes the product than Blizzard, and yet SOMEHOW Blizzard has some EVIL SCHEME to make you pay out the nose for these things.
When other companies make you pay more.
And OTHER companies offer the exact same authenticator, from the same company...
This makes NO Sense at all, sorry.
Heres the wiki entry on them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digipass
The same company makes nearly all of them... they make them for banks too...
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/wiki/Security_Token_Details Here's FFXI's authenticator, and the cost, $9.99.
http://buy.swtor.com/us/#optional-game-add-ons Here is Bioware's version, same company, same authenticator, for $4.00. They clearly bought MORE of them, and as we all know SWTOR was the most expensive (and costly) mmo, its not hard to imagine them ordering a plethora of them and selling them at cost as well.
There ya have it, 3 companies
You sure the servers where really down and it wasn't that your machine was blocking connections to Blizzard's game servers to give the hackers time to take your stuff? That would be trival to do if someone can get a executable on your machine.
Get you to install a executable on your machine that has administrative rights to run (in memory or as a service)
Use a keylogger and/or screen scrapper to pull the authentication information for your blizzard account
Reconfigure your machine to block all traffic to the login/game servers so you get a server down error.
Login and steal your stuff
Reconfigure your machine back so the servers "come back up"
Profit.
You were the one who suggested it was to sell authentiators... it was post 4 in this thread.
As to being hacked offline, extremely unlikely.
Blizzard is going around hacking their own customers while servers are offline, do you realize how this sounds?
For one its pretty much fraud, and the FTC would be all over them like butter on bread.
For two its just bad for business.
More than likely your computer was hacked.
Probably because the entire thing about Blizzard doing this to their customers is freaking assinine... Do you honestly think a company would do such a thing purposefully to its own customer base?
And also it is hard to feel for empathy when you use the same service but have not experienced the things the OP claims. My WoW account was compromised three times but it all stopped after I got an authenticator...go figure...
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Who cares if you get hacked in diablo 3...the game is so bad its hard to even care. The game should have been released April 1st, at least that way the joke would have been on us.
...to which I answered that I didn't agree with the conspiracy... Did you even read before posting?
Why the hostile reponse? It seems you just want to argue
IF blizz had been hacked you'd have known about it. When big companies get hacked, the people that did the hacking brag about it. When Sony got hacked and was down for days, you knew about it. When Iran's nuke program got hacked, you knew about it.
When and if the company that makes the most popular MMORPG gets hacked for real, you'll know about it.
The idea that blizz would intentionally hack themselves is ludicrous. Imagine the fallout from the press and consumers. How many people would ever trust them again? Plus the legal ramifications, you think the executives running blizz would risk going to jail over stupid shit?
Get real. I played WoW for 7 years, have the iphone authenticator, have set the option in my bnet account settings to only allow logins from my current location.
There is no conspiracy theory. There is only your inability to not keep your account secure. Hell I almost fell for it a month ago. I got an email stating I got invited to the MoP beta. I clicked the link but thankfully was on my iphone and saw that it was a fake page. I normally always hold my finger on any WoW related link to see what page it leads to and it's usually something like worldofwarcraf1.blizzard.tk.net-account.tk or something stupid like that. I don't know why I didn't this time. Since then I get 3 or 4 fake beta invites a week.
You failed to secure your own account. Bottom line.
Dont know and dont care about what Blizzard does, but when you say "a" company I assume you mean any company yea? In that case, Atlantica Online run by NDoors (back in the days) was constantly hacked left and right. No hyperbole intended here but people lost over $500 worth of game/cash shop junk constantly (and sometimes repeatedly). I know this because people from my Nation (something like an alliance of guilds) ended up losing lots, were not compensated by NDoors and therefore quit the game.
No fucking way people could get hacked over and over again, even after resetting passwords and virtual keyboard PINs, if there wasnt a serverside leak. It could be somewhat of a similar problem on Blizzard's side here. Not saying Blizzard would be doing this on Purpose(as per OP), but to rule out the possibilty of any problems on Blizzard's end is what is truly assine. Not talking especially about you, but throwing out a blanket statement for the fanboys to burn and piss on.
And FYI, I stopped playing Blizzard games around 6-7 years ago, and my BNet account got hacked (or so said a mail from Blizzard) sometime last year. Sender ID and all seemed legit, and it had no false link that would redirect me to phishing sites but asked me to directly log to my account via Blizzard's site. Havent played a Bnet game for years, havent logged into my accounts for years, havent installed a Blizzard game on my new PC(for years). Go figure...?
I highly doubt Blizzard is stupid enough to commit crimes like those that have been postulated in this thread.
It's funny how people would rather believe Blizzard is stealing/has been breached, and not that their own PC is infected (AVG Free Edition does not guarantee a safe computer).
Lol. A simple RAT could take care of that.
Eleanor Rigby.
When my account was inactive for about a year it was hacked as well. But it all stopped when I got the authenticator.
As far as Atlantica Online, when I said "a" company I was referring to Blizzard of course. Could care less about Atlantica Online, tried it once and it wasn't for me, so if you guys lost all that stuff it is a shame.
In the grand shceme of things, to think that Blizzard is doing this, and here is the KEY WORD from my post, PURPOSEFULLY, is ridiculous. What would they stand to gain? If there is a problem on their end there is a problem on their end. It doesn't mean they are out to get you, what ar they going to do with the gold or items they take anyway? Sell them to themselves?
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this. Usually when I talk to people they're like blah blah you got keylogged. NO I didn't. I run a clean system, I have a computer science degree I'm not an idiot, most of my friends are similar and I'm not the only one that's gotten their account stolen on wow, I've had at least 3-5 people I know of that are computer literate have this happen.
I know it's cash farmers that are too lazy to make their own money, no doubt about that. Ever since they got in the one time that email constantly receives phishing scam emails for a wide variety of games, like I'm really stupid enough to fall for that. But yeah I really think there's some kind of security loophole in blizzard's servers that has been wide open for a long time or something. The problems are entirely too rampant with literate people getting it done to them.
One of my other thoughts too is that maybe it's fansites. Bliz's games have a lot of fansites and a lot of smaller ones might be getting their account databases compromised without knowing and without having proper security, even weak security, on their passwords.
It is possible that Blizzard's authentication servers have been compromised but it's not really likely. There is so much money to be made off of Blizzard accounts that if there was a open compromise against the Blizzard authentication servers we would see much more of a issue than exists. I won't rule out the idea of some form of session ID hack but I also haven't heard of anything other than hearsay (and poorly formed at that) to back up that charge either.
The simplist answer is usally the right one and the simplist answer is Blizzard accounts are so valuable (especially now that they tie both WoW and D3 together in a single username) that they are high prioirty targets. Why go after bank accounts and credit card numbers (which have layers of protection on them to stop stealing) when you make just as much if not more on average by compromising Blizzard accounts which don't carry the same jail time?
I know for a fact that fansites are a issue. Either the fansite is run with good intentions but lack security or it's run by people who intentionaly use it to farm account information. If you use the same email address, password, security question, etc. on a fan site as you do on the game that sites supports you honestly deserve to your account stolen if for nothing else as a object leason.