Blizzard made it so addons were easy to get/use for the game.. i don't care whats in the "EULA", they made the game very addon-friendly, and on purpose...
and i don't mind people who play without em.. its your own choice..
however.. most raiding guilds require em.. and by most i mean like 99% lol
I went back to playing WOW after 4 years out of boredom. I wanted some mindless effortless fun. I had been playing for 2 months and found out yesterday my account is hacked and my level 70 toons from before are gone. The current level 20 toon i was playing is also gone.
I called support and the call volume was so high the couldnt take my call. I looked in the forums and see this is an epidemic.
Who needs this hassle I can play RPM or Allods and not deal with this BS.
Um it takes around a week or 2 to get your characters back. Blizzard actually does a really good job in this particular area. Also RoM and Allods are very second rate to WoW.
I get the idea that on this mmorpg forums there is quite a lot of mixup with addons trough the ingame addon manager and "addons" that alter your game client.
The first is supported by Blizzard and can not affect your computer outside of the game.
The latter is a ban-able offense and can indeed compromise your computer.
No other legitimate reason comes to my mind of why myself, along with others, who took all necessary and due precations could have been hacked. The other alternative is to say that Blizzard's security is really that bad and I'm not sure I want to seriously go that far.
Take the time to write me a PM here to explain just why add-ons are not and cannot be an issue. Other than that, we have two informed opinions that simply are different. Thankfully, neither one of us is stupid we're simply missing something. That said, when you say that an add-on can have the same security issues as the internet you are in fact saying that an add-on can, in some real way, compromise my account. Finally, add-ons seem to be the common demoninator because we have yet to see someone saying that they have never used and add-on and have taken all necessary and due safety precations yet still be hacked.
Interesting. I am wondering if the below rings true:
1. Your password for the email account connected to your battle.net account is extremely secure and not the same password you use to log on to battle.net.
2. You never visited any malicious or hacked websites. (In many cases the security breach comes from a legitimate website that has been hacked).
In any case, you can make sure the addons you run are secure. If you downloaded an infected addon, well, I'm sorry but you are at fault. In most cases I woudl think the compromised accounts are a result of either visiting a cloned site or responding to a phishing email.
Just knowing your email address can unfortunately be enough in many cases. What these people can do is just try to go for the secret question to reset the password, or to simply brute force your password. Blizzard security is not lax, it is the poor internet security and password management of individuals that results in compromised accounts. The reason why so many accounts are being hacked is the popularity of the game.
Blizzard made it so addons were easy to get/use for the game.. i don't care whats in the "EULA", they made the game very addon-friendly, and on purpose...
and i don't mind people who play without em.. its your own choice..
however.. most raiding guilds require em.. and by most i mean like 99% lol
Correct. The fact of the matter is 99% of the popular addons required by raiding guilds are also completely safe. Just make sure you get the from the correct source, and you shouldn't have to worry about addons.
Blizzard needs to stop restoring accounts that are playing with altered game clients. I remember how good it sounded during WoW's beta when it was said that Blizzard was putting tools in place to deter anyone hacking the game client. That was until Thottbot started datamining and the floodgates opened. Originally, we were told that they were allowing add-ons so they could learn how to combat the hacks.
Then the suits figured out pretty quick that the inconvenience of restoring compromised accounts was far outweighed by allowing the chumps who made the add-ons to do much of the development grunt work. How else do you think that changes to the UI were instituted? They just look for the add-ons that get used the most, pick them apart, and graft them into the client without having to worry about pesky details like compensation for labor.
If you use add-ons (I won't even talk about buying gold or leveling services), you have only yourself to blame for your account being compromised.
Addons are 100% safe. There is no way for a LUA based addon to get your account information. Unzipping an addon into the addon folder is completely safe.
People may get tricked into downloading and executing programs while thinking that it is an addon, but that doesn't mean addons are the fault.
Why cant blizz put into place a virtual keyboard with the characters moved at random very time its used, instead of trying to shift the responsability to the consumer for their security issues. Hacked accounts have always been a problem with wow, but the change to battle.net made it an epidemic not just a problem.
Blizzard needs to stop restoring accounts that are playing with altered game clients. I remember how good it sounded during WoW's beta when it was said that Blizzard was putting tools in place to deter anyone hacking the game client. That was until Thottbot started datamining and the floodgates opened. Originally, we were told that they were allowing add-ons so they could learn how to combat the hacks.
Then the suits figured out pretty quick that the inconvenience of restoring compromised accounts was far outweighed by allowing the chumps who made the add-ons to do much of the development grunt work. How else do you think that changes to the UI were instituted? They just look for the add-ons that get used the most, pick them apart, and graft them into the client without having to worry about pesky details like compensation for labor.
If you use add-ons (I won't even talk about buying gold or leveling services), you have only yourself to blame for your account being compromised.
Addons are 100% safe. There is no way for a LUA based addon to get your account information. Unzipping an addon into the addon folder is completely safe.
People may get tricked into downloading and executing programs while thinking that it is an addon, but that doesn't mean addons are the fault.
Guild makes you use them, doesn't it? At any rate, keep believing that. That's what account thieves are counting on.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
I went back to playing WOW after 4 years out of boredom. I wanted some mindless effortless fun. I had been playing for 2 months and found out yesterday my account is hacked and my level 70 toons from before are gone. The current level 20 toon i was playing is also gone.
I called support and the call volume was so high the couldnt take my call. I looked in the forums and see this is an epidemic.
Who needs this hassle I can play RPM or Allods and not deal with this BS.
You won't last long in MMO's if this is how you react to hacking. The last time I was hacked, all I had to do was call them. I was on hold for about 52 minuts (left the phone on speakerphone, and did something else for a little bit). My account had a 3 hour vacation, then I had it back.
When you say "no support" you aren't being accurate. You're mad at Blizzard because of the scumbags out there. You're firing your gun at the wrong enemy.
Also....Allods customer support is much much worse. They won't even reimburse you for cash shop items that disappear because of a bug...they simply tell you that its still beta and these kinds of things happen.
Blizzard needs to stop restoring accounts that are playing with altered game clients. I remember how good it sounded during WoW's beta when it was said that Blizzard was putting tools in place to deter anyone hacking the game client. That was until Thottbot started datamining and the floodgates opened. Originally, we were told that they were allowing add-ons so they could learn how to combat the hacks.
Then the suits figured out pretty quick that the inconvenience of restoring compromised accounts was far outweighed by allowing the chumps who made the add-ons to do much of the development grunt work. How else do you think that changes to the UI were instituted? They just look for the add-ons that get used the most, pick them apart, and graft them into the client without having to worry about pesky details like compensation for labor.
If you use add-ons (I won't even talk about buying gold or leveling services), you have only yourself to blame for your account being compromised.
Addons are 100% safe. There is no way for a LUA based addon to get your account information. Unzipping an addon into the addon folder is completely safe.
People may get tricked into downloading and executing programs while thinking that it is an addon, but that doesn't mean addons are the fault.
Guild makes you use them, doesn't it? At any rate, keep believing that. That's what account thieves are counting on.
Please stop spewing baseless nonsense when you don't have an idea of what exactly the WoW lua addon interface can do. Maybe in the early days of Vanilla when the addon policy was much more liberal, the addons themselves could have been a security risk.
The risk involved with addons is purely related to where you get the from. If you download an infected file, the fault is 100% user based.
It's Blizzard's job to be your personal IT Dept. They are supposed to tell you how to secure your computer and probably your home network, too.
They are supposed to keep your system patched and updated with all of the OS updates. They are also supposed to monitor your firewall and antivirus applications to ensure they are up to date as well. And as for your anti-spyware software, yeah, they got that covered as well.
You should be completely free to install whatever you want, downloaded form wherever, and Blizz is supposed to pre-scan and verify that 100% of online content you wish to view is safe. You want to download games, movies, software, etc... from sites for free!?!?! Sure, go ahead... Blizz supports that, too! They will make sure your software is free of charge, safe, and if you have issues running the cracks.. it's their fault. Call their support line and they'll be more than happy to assist.
Furthermore, Blizzard should hire 1 support person for every player. That's right, a 1:1 ratio of support staff to playerbase!
If you let your friends play your characters and share your account regularly... sure, Blizz supports that! Afterall, they secure your friend's PC's, too!!!!!
Blizz also babysits all the kids that are out of school for the summer. (okay, they do kinda do that, sadly)
They offer couples counseling as well as dating services!
They save you more money on your car insurance than that dumb little lizard's company!
Body by Blizzard! That's right... get ripped while raiding!!!!!!!!!! Eat loads and loads of pizza... Blizz will make sure your sixpack dominates 'the situation'.
It's Blizzard's job to be your personal IT Dept. They are supposed to tell you how to secure your computer and probably your home network, too.
They are supposed to keep your system patched and updated with all of the OS updates. They are also supposed to monitor your firewall and antivirus applications to ensure they are up to date as well. And as for your anti-spyware software, yeah, they got that covered as well.
You should be completely free to install whatever you want, downloaded form wherever, and Blizz is supposed to pre-scan and verify that 100% of online content you wish to view is safe. You want to download games, movies, software, etc... from sites for free!?!?! Sure, go ahead... Blizz supports that, too! They will make sure your software is free of charge, safe, and if you have issues running the cracks.. it's their fault. Call their support line and they'll be more than happy to assist.
Furthermore, Blizzard should hire 1 support person for every player. That's right, a 1:1 ratio of support staff to playerbase!
...
/sarcasm off
This. The reason there are so many angry hacking victims out there, is that they know where the blame truly lies and are just afraid to admit it. Somewhere along the line, a large majority of the people that have gotten hacked have made that decisive screw-up themselves.
Having 'lollerballs123' as your account password might be cool and all, but it certainly is not safe.
The reason why we see these hacking posts pop up nearly every day is that the people being targeted by the WoW scammers are in general more computer savvy then your generic PC users. What people don't realize is that there are large scale organizations out there that make their living from hacking accounts, and they are very good at what they do. We the gamers need to beef up our security in turn.
Blizzard needs to stop restoring accounts that are playing with altered game clients. I remember how good it sounded during WoW's beta when it was said that Blizzard was putting tools in place to deter anyone hacking the game client. That was until Thottbot started datamining and the floodgates opened. Originally, we were told that they were allowing add-ons so they could learn how to combat the hacks.
Then the suits figured out pretty quick that the inconvenience of restoring compromised accounts was far outweighed by allowing the chumps who made the add-ons to do much of the development grunt work. How else do you think that changes to the UI were instituted? They just look for the add-ons that get used the most, pick them apart, and graft them into the client without having to worry about pesky details like compensation for labor.
If you use add-ons (I won't even talk about buying gold or leveling services), you have only yourself to blame for your account being compromised.
Addons are 100% safe. There is no way for a LUA based addon to get your account information. Unzipping an addon into the addon folder is completely safe.
People may get tricked into downloading and executing programs while thinking that it is an addon, but that doesn't mean addons are the fault.
Guild makes you use them, doesn't it? At any rate, keep believing that. That's what account thieves are counting on.
No, my guild doesn't make me use a single thing. As long as I do my job they could not care less about what is on my screen.
I can also read/program LUA, so it isn't very hard to see what addons can and can't do since they are just text files. Files that do nothing until the wow program calls and executes the code within game client. Addons cannot access your account information at all.
You are spreading nothing more than misinformation.
Blizzard needs to stop restoring accounts that are playing with altered game clients. I remember how good it sounded during WoW's beta when it was said that Blizzard was putting tools in place to deter anyone hacking the game client. That was until Thottbot started datamining and the floodgates opened. Originally, we were told that they were allowing add-ons so they could learn how to combat the hacks.
Then the suits figured out pretty quick that the inconvenience of restoring compromised accounts was far outweighed by allowing the chumps who made the add-ons to do much of the development grunt work. How else do you think that changes to the UI were instituted? They just look for the add-ons that get used the most, pick them apart, and graft them into the client without having to worry about pesky details like compensation for labor.
If you use add-ons (I won't even talk about buying gold or leveling services), you have only yourself to blame for your account being compromised.
There's two things opinions in this therad that I have a problem with, add-on hate, and the idea that if someones WoW account is compromised, then it's that persons own fault.
I really don't understand all the add-on hate, not that it's anything new, I've run into plenty of people that seem to think that using add-ons are "cheating". But going so far as to say that if you use add-ons then it's your own fault you were hacked... I'm sorry but that's just ignorant.
Yes, I readily admit that it IS possible for someone to slip a keylogger into an add-on, but as long as you are careful you won't ever have a problem using add-ons. The RESPONSIBLE add-on sites, namely the ***interface.com sites (EQ2interface, WoWinterface etc.) will not post an add-on if the author doesn't submit their code for review to ensure that there isn't any malicous code in the add-on, and if they find anything even remotely malicous or something undocumented then the add-on is never posted for download. I don't know for sure, but I don't think Curse does this, and I know the majority of the smaller add-on sites don't, and that's why I don't use them, and strongly caution people to stay away from those sites. Not to mention the fact that the sdk used for WoW add-ons is limited in what it can do, and even though it does use Lua, it uses a limited version that makes executing malicous code in-game almost impossible. For an add-on to contain a key-logger it would have to be something executed outside the game, like an installer package, or even possibly a data-miner, but again, as long as you are careful, add-ons are totally safe.
I have used add-ons since EQ first started allowing UI customization, and have used them in EQ, DAoC, EQ2, WoW, LoTRO, WAR, and others, and am careful about where I download the add-ons from and have only ever had my account compromised once. And guess which game that was in? Yup, WoW, and I know that it wasn't b/c of an add-on.
When my WoW account was "compromised", I hadn't played WoW in over a year, and as soon as I became aware that my account had been reactivated I thoroughly checked my computer and archived files (including old WoW add-ons I saved incase I wanted to play again) for keyloggers/trojans etc and didn't find anything. And I know my way around a computer, I didn't just use Norton or McAfee, spybot or adaware, or any other programs that are easily fooled. I manually went through my registry, used a combination of Process Explorer-type process viewers and a wonderful little tool called Hijack-This, and some other utilities specially designed to find shit in your system and/or files where others fail, and found nothing. Maybe someone lifted my info from a fansite? Maybe, but it wouldn't do them much good as I use different passwords for different types of things, and would never use the same password for a website and a game or bank log-in or something.
The point is, I am very careful about these protecting my personal info, data, and computer and yet, magically my WoW account was compromised. I am not one for conspiracy theories but there definitely IS something going on here, too many people are having their accounts compromised, it especially seems prevelant amongst those people that have an inactive WoW account.
Personally, my account was compromised around the time that Blizz changed the WoW log-in to corespond w/ bnet log-in, and I think that during that time they possibly had a major security leak and just never told anyone. And why would they? They are NOT obligated to tell you if your personal information was, or may have been compromised b/c of their actions. It just seems that there was a rash of accounts compromised around that time, too many for it to be a coincidence.
Another possibility, albeit a very remote one, is that there is a "mole" inside Blizzard that is selling peoples account info to unscroupulous characters/companies. And yet another possibility, and I hesitate to even say it b/c it is bordering even closer to a "conpiracy theory" and just sounds ridiculous imo, is that Activision-Blizzard is purosefully doing all this to drive sales of authenticators.
Note that I don't actually believe these last two, I'm just throwing them out there. I think that a majority of the compromised accounts are b/c of people not being careful with their info, but there are just sooo many people coming forward saying their accounts were compromised that I find it hard to believe that all these people were simply not careful. Before it happened to me I held the same view that a lot of people in this thread do, but I KNOW that I was more then careful and yet still had problems.
tldr version: Add-ons are totally safe as long as you are careful, and I believe there are too many accounts being compromised for it to all be coincidental, or the individuals fault.
It's your responsibility to keep your information safe.
And that is the bottom line.
Blaming Blizzard for being backed up with service requests, or claiming that somehow they are involved in order to try and sell authenticators, is absolutely absurd.
I've played since launch and never once had my account compromised.
The solution is not having their database compromised.
You might want to brush up on how large, billion dollar corporations handle network security both internally and externally. The chances of them having a compromised db are about the same as adolf hitler rising from the dead, donning a santa suit and passing out presents to the children of the world...
They do not have a compromised database lol and trying to claim they do is outrageous.
I've said it once, I'll say it again, they need to start making all boxed copies of wow come with an Authenticator in the box, so new players start off safe, everyone else, go buy one, its 6.50 at the most. Now what would be awesome is if your account has an authenticator added to it, you get 6.50 off for that months sub. But still, at 6.50, I doubt they are making any money off of it. probably just covering cost.
i too was hacked, Blizzard really didn't do much, I couldn't get them on the phone and they would send me emails basically giving me the run around.
I decided not to play the game, anymore and move on to the next one. Eventually I logged in and found my password to be fixed and all my gold was gone, this was about 3 weeks after the incident.
The solution is not having their database compromised.
You might want to brush up on how large, billion dollar corporations handle network security both internally and externally. The chances of them having a compromised db are about the same as adolf hitler rising from the dead, donning a santa suit and passing out presents to the children of the world...
They do not have a compromised database lol and trying to claim they do is outrageous.
while I'll admit it's a small chance its there, my wife account got hacked two months after we quit and reformatted our computers. Now a hacker could have gotten her info and sat on it for two months, then bought some game time, and used it for farming (when we got it back there was 600 saronite in her bags woot!) but I'm inclined to believe they got hacked, that s mostly cause i find it hard to believe that they sat on info that long. I guess they could, don't have many friends that are inside the game account hacking and gold selling business so don't know exactly how they do it. (chances are no one on this site does, and if they did, they probably shouldn't admit it.)
Anyways point being, there is a significantly larger chance they will get hacked as your example, but I get it, and found it humorous all the same. i still play WoW cause dispite everything, when we emailed and called we eventually got through to someone(by eventually I mean when we called not during peak business hours), and they told us when our account restoration would be complete, and it was.
My account got hacked, a few weeks ago. It isn't used, so it's not important. Changed the email (lucky me had a spare floating around) and my password. Haven't bothered to retrieve it or try and don't know how it happened. I never downloaded an add on or anything else. There's nothing on my system. You work it out. Yes, my system is secured.
I suppose it's still my fault to the fan's of WoW. I never gave away my Bnet email either. It'll still be my fault. Ah well, I can live with that. Good day to you.
My account got hacked, a few weeks ago. It isn't used, so it's not important. Changed the email (lucky me had a spare floating around) and my password. Haven't bothered to retrieve it or try and don't know how it happened. I never downloaded an add on or anything else. There's nothing on my system. You work it out. Yes, my system is secured.
I suppose it's still my fault to the fan's of WoW. I never gave away my Bnet email either. It'll still be my fault. Ah well, I can live with that. Good day to you.
Your system is as secure as you can make it and nothing more. Beyond that you cannot make any claims that you are incapable of having a security flaw in your computer or invulnerable to attacks.
Next month when your operating system downloads a security update, it will be addressing a security flaw you have on your computer right now. A security flaw you don't even know about and is wide open to attack right now. The update your virus scanner downloads tomorrow will be addressing a virus that is already running around the internet and one that your scanner will not detect today. Keep in mind there are also java attacks, flash attacks, browser attacks and countless other programs and systems that all have vulnerabilities you don't know about.
You are fighting against paid professionals with years of experience at getting information and deceitful ways of covering their tracks.
The solution is not having their database compromised.
You might want to brush up on how large, billion dollar corporations handle network security both internally and externally. The chances of them having a compromised db are about the same as adolf hitler rising from the dead, donning a santa suit and passing out presents to the children of the world...
They do not have a compromised database lol and trying to claim they do is outrageous.
Obviously. It wasn't their completely borked transition between normal and battlenet accounts that caused thousands of people to lose their accounts.
I was inactive for 6 months when an old friend saw my character log in. There were other friends that quit during or prior to TBC that were seen active at the same time, which are up to 2-3 years of inactivity. Obviously that was all our faults having not even been playing the game.
It doesn't really matter how much proof is put in front of people like you, might as well be talking to a wall.
My account got hacked, a few weeks ago. It isn't used, so it's not important. Changed the email (lucky me had a spare floating around) and my password. Haven't bothered to retrieve it or try and don't know how it happened. I never downloaded an add on or anything else. There's nothing on my system. You work it out. Yes, my system is secured.
I suppose it's still my fault to the fan's of WoW. I never gave away my Bnet email either. It'll still be my fault. Ah well, I can live with that. Good day to you.
Your system is as secure as you can make it and nothing more. Beyond that you cannot make any claims that you are incapable of having a security flaw in your computer or invulnerable to attacks.
Next month when your operating system downloads a security update, it will be addressing a security flaw you have on your computer right now. A security flaw you don't even know about and is wide open to attack right now. The update your virus scanner downloads tomorrow will be addressing a virus that is already running around the internet and one that your scanner will not detect today. Keep in mind there are also java attacks, flash attacks, browser attacks and countless other programs and systems that all have vulnerabilities you don't know about.
You are fighting against paid professionals with years of experience at getting information and deceitful ways of covering their tracks.
So the first and only things these "master criminals" go for are Warcraft accounts? Do I even have to explain how ridiculous this sounds?
Comments
Blizzard made it so addons were easy to get/use for the game.. i don't care whats in the "EULA", they made the game very addon-friendly, and on purpose...
and i don't mind people who play without em.. its your own choice..
however.. most raiding guilds require em.. and by most i mean like 99% lol
Um it takes around a week or 2 to get your characters back. Blizzard actually does a really good job in this particular area. Also RoM and Allods are very second rate to WoW.
I get the idea that on this mmorpg forums there is quite a lot of mixup with addons trough the ingame addon manager and "addons" that alter your game client.
The first is supported by Blizzard and can not affect your computer outside of the game.
The latter is a ban-able offense and can indeed compromise your computer.
Interesting. I am wondering if the below rings true:
1. Your password for the email account connected to your battle.net account is extremely secure and not the same password you use to log on to battle.net.
2. You never visited any malicious or hacked websites. (In many cases the security breach comes from a legitimate website that has been hacked).
In any case, you can make sure the addons you run are secure. If you downloaded an infected addon, well, I'm sorry but you are at fault. In most cases I woudl think the compromised accounts are a result of either visiting a cloned site or responding to a phishing email.
Just knowing your email address can unfortunately be enough in many cases. What these people can do is just try to go for the secret question to reset the password, or to simply brute force your password. Blizzard security is not lax, it is the poor internet security and password management of individuals that results in compromised accounts. The reason why so many accounts are being hacked is the popularity of the game.
Correct. The fact of the matter is 99% of the popular addons required by raiding guilds are also completely safe. Just make sure you get the from the correct source, and you shouldn't have to worry about addons.
Addons are 100% safe. There is no way for a LUA based addon to get your account information. Unzipping an addon into the addon folder is completely safe.
People may get tricked into downloading and executing programs while thinking that it is an addon, but that doesn't mean addons are the fault.
Why cant blizz put into place a virtual keyboard with the characters moved at random very time its used, instead of trying to shift the responsability to the consumer for their security issues. Hacked accounts have always been a problem with wow, but the change to battle.net made it an epidemic not just a problem.
Guild makes you use them, doesn't it? At any rate, keep believing that. That's what account thieves are counting on.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
You won't last long in MMO's if this is how you react to hacking. The last time I was hacked, all I had to do was call them. I was on hold for about 52 minuts (left the phone on speakerphone, and did something else for a little bit). My account had a 3 hour vacation, then I had it back.
When you say "no support" you aren't being accurate. You're mad at Blizzard because of the scumbags out there. You're firing your gun at the wrong enemy.
Also....Allods customer support is much much worse. They won't even reimburse you for cash shop items that disappear because of a bug...they simply tell you that its still beta and these kinds of things happen.
Please stop spewing baseless nonsense when you don't have an idea of what exactly the WoW lua addon interface can do. Maybe in the early days of Vanilla when the addon policy was much more liberal, the addons themselves could have been a security risk.
The risk involved with addons is purely related to where you get the from. If you download an infected file, the fault is 100% user based.
It's Blizzard's job to be your personal IT Dept. They are supposed to tell you how to secure your computer and probably your home network, too.
They are supposed to keep your system patched and updated with all of the OS updates. They are also supposed to monitor your firewall and antivirus applications to ensure they are up to date as well. And as for your anti-spyware software, yeah, they got that covered as well.
You should be completely free to install whatever you want, downloaded form wherever, and Blizz is supposed to pre-scan and verify that 100% of online content you wish to view is safe. You want to download games, movies, software, etc... from sites for free!?!?! Sure, go ahead... Blizz supports that, too! They will make sure your software is free of charge, safe, and if you have issues running the cracks.. it's their fault. Call their support line and they'll be more than happy to assist.
Furthermore, Blizzard should hire 1 support person for every player. That's right, a 1:1 ratio of support staff to playerbase!
If you let your friends play your characters and share your account regularly... sure, Blizz supports that! Afterall, they secure your friend's PC's, too!!!!!
Blizz also babysits all the kids that are out of school for the summer. (okay, they do kinda do that, sadly)
They offer couples counseling as well as dating services!
They save you more money on your car insurance than that dumb little lizard's company!
Body by Blizzard! That's right... get ripped while raiding!!!!!!!!!! Eat loads and loads of pizza... Blizz will make sure your sixpack dominates 'the situation'.
They did not sleep with Tiger Woods!
...
/sarcasm off
This. The reason there are so many angry hacking victims out there, is that they know where the blame truly lies and are just afraid to admit it. Somewhere along the line, a large majority of the people that have gotten hacked have made that decisive screw-up themselves.
Having 'lollerballs123' as your account password might be cool and all, but it certainly is not safe.
The reason why we see these hacking posts pop up nearly every day is that the people being targeted by the WoW scammers are in general more computer savvy then your generic PC users. What people don't realize is that there are large scale organizations out there that make their living from hacking accounts, and they are very good at what they do. We the gamers need to beef up our security in turn.
No, my guild doesn't make me use a single thing. As long as I do my job they could not care less about what is on my screen.
I can also read/program LUA, so it isn't very hard to see what addons can and can't do since they are just text files. Files that do nothing until the wow program calls and executes the code within game client. Addons cannot access your account information at all.
You are spreading nothing more than misinformation.
There's two things opinions in this therad that I have a problem with, add-on hate, and the idea that if someones WoW account is compromised, then it's that persons own fault.
I really don't understand all the add-on hate, not that it's anything new, I've run into plenty of people that seem to think that using add-ons are "cheating". But going so far as to say that if you use add-ons then it's your own fault you were hacked... I'm sorry but that's just ignorant.
Yes, I readily admit that it IS possible for someone to slip a keylogger into an add-on, but as long as you are careful you won't ever have a problem using add-ons. The RESPONSIBLE add-on sites, namely the ***interface.com sites (EQ2interface, WoWinterface etc.) will not post an add-on if the author doesn't submit their code for review to ensure that there isn't any malicous code in the add-on, and if they find anything even remotely malicous or something undocumented then the add-on is never posted for download. I don't know for sure, but I don't think Curse does this, and I know the majority of the smaller add-on sites don't, and that's why I don't use them, and strongly caution people to stay away from those sites. Not to mention the fact that the sdk used for WoW add-ons is limited in what it can do, and even though it does use Lua, it uses a limited version that makes executing malicous code in-game almost impossible. For an add-on to contain a key-logger it would have to be something executed outside the game, like an installer package, or even possibly a data-miner, but again, as long as you are careful, add-ons are totally safe.
I have used add-ons since EQ first started allowing UI customization, and have used them in EQ, DAoC, EQ2, WoW, LoTRO, WAR, and others, and am careful about where I download the add-ons from and have only ever had my account compromised once. And guess which game that was in? Yup, WoW, and I know that it wasn't b/c of an add-on.
When my WoW account was "compromised", I hadn't played WoW in over a year, and as soon as I became aware that my account had been reactivated I thoroughly checked my computer and archived files (including old WoW add-ons I saved incase I wanted to play again) for keyloggers/trojans etc and didn't find anything. And I know my way around a computer, I didn't just use Norton or McAfee, spybot or adaware, or any other programs that are easily fooled. I manually went through my registry, used a combination of Process Explorer-type process viewers and a wonderful little tool called Hijack-This, and some other utilities specially designed to find shit in your system and/or files where others fail, and found nothing. Maybe someone lifted my info from a fansite? Maybe, but it wouldn't do them much good as I use different passwords for different types of things, and would never use the same password for a website and a game or bank log-in or something.
The point is, I am very careful about these protecting my personal info, data, and computer and yet, magically my WoW account was compromised. I am not one for conspiracy theories but there definitely IS something going on here, too many people are having their accounts compromised, it especially seems prevelant amongst those people that have an inactive WoW account.
Personally, my account was compromised around the time that Blizz changed the WoW log-in to corespond w/ bnet log-in, and I think that during that time they possibly had a major security leak and just never told anyone. And why would they? They are NOT obligated to tell you if your personal information was, or may have been compromised b/c of their actions. It just seems that there was a rash of accounts compromised around that time, too many for it to be a coincidence.
Another possibility, albeit a very remote one, is that there is a "mole" inside Blizzard that is selling peoples account info to unscroupulous characters/companies. And yet another possibility, and I hesitate to even say it b/c it is bordering even closer to a "conpiracy theory" and just sounds ridiculous imo, is that Activision-Blizzard is purosefully doing all this to drive sales of authenticators.
Note that I don't actually believe these last two, I'm just throwing them out there. I think that a majority of the compromised accounts are b/c of people not being careful with their info, but there are just sooo many people coming forward saying their accounts were compromised that I find it hard to believe that all these people were simply not careful. Before it happened to me I held the same view that a lot of people in this thread do, but I KNOW that I was more then careful and yet still had problems.
tldr version: Add-ons are totally safe as long as you are careful, and I believe there are too many accounts being compromised for it to all be coincidental, or the individuals fault.
What a stupid comment.
The solution is not having their database compromised.
And that is the bottom line.
Blaming Blizzard for being backed up with service requests, or claiming that somehow they are involved in order to try and sell authenticators, is absolutely absurd.
I've played since launch and never once had my account compromised.
You might want to brush up on how large, billion dollar corporations handle network security both internally and externally. The chances of them having a compromised db are about the same as adolf hitler rising from the dead, donning a santa suit and passing out presents to the children of the world...
They do not have a compromised database lol and trying to claim they do is outrageous.
So many boo hoo's here. It's not hard not to get hacked even without the lame authenticator. Quit cus thy ruined the game, not cus you fail.
I've said it once, I'll say it again, they need to start making all boxed copies of wow come with an Authenticator in the box, so new players start off safe, everyone else, go buy one, its 6.50 at the most. Now what would be awesome is if your account has an authenticator added to it, you get 6.50 off for that months sub. But still, at 6.50, I doubt they are making any money off of it. probably just covering cost.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
i too was hacked, Blizzard really didn't do much, I couldn't get them on the phone and they would send me emails basically giving me the run around.
I decided not to play the game, anymore and move on to the next one. Eventually I logged in and found my password to be fixed and all my gold was gone, this was about 3 weeks after the incident.
while I'll admit it's a small chance its there, my wife account got hacked two months after we quit and reformatted our computers. Now a hacker could have gotten her info and sat on it for two months, then bought some game time, and used it for farming (when we got it back there was 600 saronite in her bags woot!) but I'm inclined to believe they got hacked, that s mostly cause i find it hard to believe that they sat on info that long. I guess they could, don't have many friends that are inside the game account hacking and gold selling business so don't know exactly how they do it. (chances are no one on this site does, and if they did, they probably shouldn't admit it.)
Anyways point being, there is a significantly larger chance they will get hacked as your example, but I get it, and found it humorous all the same. i still play WoW cause dispite everything, when we emailed and called we eventually got through to someone(by eventually I mean when we called not during peak business hours), and they told us when our account restoration would be complete, and it was.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
My account got hacked, a few weeks ago. It isn't used, so it's not important. Changed the email (lucky me had a spare floating around) and my password. Haven't bothered to retrieve it or try and don't know how it happened. I never downloaded an add on or anything else. There's nothing on my system. You work it out. Yes, my system is secured.
I suppose it's still my fault to the fan's of WoW. I never gave away my Bnet email either. It'll still be my fault. Ah well, I can live with that. Good day to you.
Your system is as secure as you can make it and nothing more. Beyond that you cannot make any claims that you are incapable of having a security flaw in your computer or invulnerable to attacks.
Next month when your operating system downloads a security update, it will be addressing a security flaw you have on your computer right now. A security flaw you don't even know about and is wide open to attack right now. The update your virus scanner downloads tomorrow will be addressing a virus that is already running around the internet and one that your scanner will not detect today. Keep in mind there are also java attacks, flash attacks, browser attacks and countless other programs and systems that all have vulnerabilities you don't know about.
You are fighting against paid professionals with years of experience at getting information and deceitful ways of covering their tracks.
Obviously. It wasn't their completely borked transition between normal and battlenet accounts that caused thousands of people to lose their accounts.
I was inactive for 6 months when an old friend saw my character log in. There were other friends that quit during or prior to TBC that were seen active at the same time, which are up to 2-3 years of inactivity. Obviously that was all our faults having not even been playing the game.
It doesn't really matter how much proof is put in front of people like you, might as well be talking to a wall.
So the first and only things these "master criminals" go for are Warcraft accounts? Do I even have to explain how ridiculous this sounds?