I made a new e-mail address to specifically use for WoW/battlenet. Haven't used it for anything else. So I guess g-mail or WoW are selling my e-mail address to gold sellers. Makes sense.
I highly doubt that google would risk their reputation (and consumer trust in their product) by selling their customers information to spammers/gold sellers of all people.
Also considering how much hackers/gold farmers are costing blizzard in terms of lost customers and massive amounts of customers service, I doubt they are selling the login names to their customers accounts to gold sellers, who are the root of the hacking problems.
Yeah... I haven't been following with what's going in WoW lately and some dude, fanboy or not, will probably come running to correct me. But yeah...
Idk look at it this way. There are currently 11.5 million subscribers in WoW. Something like that. So basically since there's soo many players in WoW it only seems like there are a lot of players getting hacked.
For example(Now remember this is an example. This is not realistic. This is just an example to that will help those who don't understand me... well... understand me).
Alright... so lets just say that 15% of accounts in one mmorpg are being hacked and 15% of accounts in WoW are being hacked. Obviously the accounts in WoW that are being hacked are more than the hacked accounts in the other mmorpg.
So it only seems like WoW has a lot of ppl getting hacked. Truth is the amount of accounts being hacked in WoW out of the total amount of accounts in WoW is the same percentage as the other mmorpg.
Basically what I'm trying to say that since WoW has so many players it only seems like a lot of ppl are getting hacked.
... Yeah so that's my theory. Then again I really have no idea what's really going on
"Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet." -Bob Marley
I'm probably one of those people who just get wet.
Yeah... I haven't been following with what's going in WoW lately and some dude, fanboy or not, will probably come running to correct me. But yeah...
Idk look at it this way. There are currently 11.5 million subscribers in WoW. Something like that. So basically since there's soo many players in WoW it only seems like there are a lot of players getting hacked.
For example(Now remember this is an example. This is not realistic. This is just an example to that will help those who don't understand me... well... understand me).
Alright... so lets just say that 15% of accounts in one mmorpg are being hacked and 15% of accounts in WoW are being hacked. Obviously the accounts in WoW that are being hacked are more than the hacked accounts in the other mmorpg.
So it only seems like WoW has a lot of ppl getting hacked. Truth is the amount of accounts being hacked in WoW out of the total amount of accounts in WoW is the same percentage as the other mmorpg.
Basically what I'm trying to say that since WoW has so many players it only seems like a lot of ppl are getting hacked.
... Yeah so that's my theory. Then again I really have no idea what's really going on
I'd say that's a pretty valid theory. Yet, I would go farther and say that hackers target WoW because of the population, so there are more trojans and keyloggers dedicated to pilfering WoW accounts than the average MMO. Not to mention the roughly 8 to 1 phishing scam rate for WoW vs Aion in my inbox(even though I quit playing WoW half a year ago <.<).
The ways of grabbing someones account information now a days is getting insane.
Viewing a video online without having everything patched and updated could even get you in trouble.
I used to think I was a carefull user, but bang hacked.
To this day I don't know how it happend, because of that I had to get an authenticator. (I have a firewall up, malware protection and an antivirus program going but one must have been out of date and something slipped threw)
Most of the ppl who've gotten hacked probably deserved it, but the hackers are getting greedy and now the ppl who otherwise think they are safe are getting caught off guard.
Look up on youtube wow hacks and youll be amazed at the step by step instructions people know of to steal accounts and gold, I dont know many other games where it is blatantly posted on youtube and how easy it is.
I'd say that's a pretty valid theory. Yet, I would go farther and say that hackers target WoW because of the population, so there are more trojans and keyloggers dedicated to pilfering WoW accounts than the average MMO. Not to mention the roughly 8 to 1 phishing scam rate for WoW vs Aion in my inbox(even though I quit playing WoW half a year ago <.<).
I get lots of WoW phishing spam, and I get Aion phishing spams in both English and French - for some unknown reason.
I'd say they're about level in my in-box, which curiously is not the address for my battle.net acount, so as far as I can tell it's random. The spam I get on my gaming mail account is minimal, as the address is (by design) minimally used on the web.
I don't really buy into the conspiracy theories, but one p***ed off employee with access to account info could do untold damage if they felt like it. It'd be foolish to ignore the human element, since that's where the most secure systems tend to break down ; )
I made a new e-mail address to specifically use for WoW/battlenet. Haven't used it for anything else. So I guess g-mail or WoW are selling my e-mail address to gold sellers. Makes sense.
I highly doubt that google would risk their reputation (and consumer trust in their product) by selling their customers information to spammers/gold sellers of all people.
Also considering how much hackers/gold farmers are costing blizzard in terms of lost customers and massive amounts of customers service, I doubt they are selling the login names to their customers accounts to gold sellers, who are the root of the hacking problems.
This thread is getting really absurd.
How do the phishers have the e-mail that I made specifically for the battlenet account?
As I said, I don't use the e-mail for anything but the battlnet login...
I started receiving emails about an attempt to reset my password. So i knew ahead of time that someone was gonna get in. So I used the support site and reported the problem. I then logged in and changed my password. Unfortunately it still got hacked, and this was a password I have never used before and was changed using my pc at work. So nothing WoW had ever come near it. No keyloggers etc.
I hadn't used my account in months, and why someone wanted my account is beyond me. My highest charater hasn't reached 40 lol. The account got hacked and then suspended and then locked for RL currcny exchange or some crap. I wrote support again, nothing in over a week.
I try to login into the account and it wants an authenticator code. I've never owned an authenticator. So I guess my account is lost. Which I don't really care that much since I gave up on the game. If I really crave it again, I'll just find a free server somewhere.
The move to battlenet was the dumbest move ever. I never had any problems until then. They make it based on your email, so anyone who has your email has half the battle already won. That is like basic common sense.
WoW is an alright game and all, but it really needs to work on the security issues. (unless this is some stupid game they play to get someone to buy an authenticator)
simple reasoning is that (1) they either buy gold (2) pick up a trojan from a dodgy website or (3) fall victim to the increasingly unbelievably good fraud WoW emails. Honestly this last point, I have 2 that luckily (1) defaulted to my spam box and (2) sent to an email address that isn't one related with my WoW account.
(last 3 emails I've had their address has been Wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com and WoWaccountEU@review.blizzard.com and even one from billing@Blizzard.com that the only evidence is false is when you hover over the link and get a name with security spelt wrong)
Originally posted by Illius I think we need to consider the fact that WoW brought in a lot of people who were not gamers and especially people who wanted to play it that aren't necessarily Internet Savvy... How many housewives have I met that play WoW but barely know how to access the internet? Then of course there are tons of naive people that think just because something seems legitimate it must be so. Since the number of users who play WoW is so great even the simplest phishing email will garner some kind of result. It's what happens when people want to just play WoW and don't care where the addons come from and believe things that in game people tell them. I'm sure there are quite a few people who get their kids to set the game up for them so that all they do is double click ont he shortcut on the desktop, type in their very basic pasword and burn through a few hours of game time.
That is a load of bs i had a friend that was hacked he is 50 years old, does not use addons, does not surf on that machine all browsers were removed,did not give his passwords to no one had kaspersky internet security,threatfire,keyscrambler premium, authenticator and he still got hacked, he received no emails about his account being hacked and his account was dormant for 6 months. So the day he found out he was hacked he brought his pc to my computer shop, i am a security expert with 25 years in the field. I ran whole series of scans from dvd, rootkits trojans,virus,keyloggers over from 10 top then vendors, then manually checked his system with autoruns nothing out of the ordinary. Just today a customer with 2 accounts same thing , i scanned his machine and manually checked it not a keylogger in sight. What could be the cause one of 4 things 1) someone at blizzard is selling accounts to gold sellers 2) there is a security hole in blizzards isp or internet someone hacked feed/router and set up a packet sniffer. 3) peoples routers are getting hacked or there is a critical security flaw in windows 4) Someone hacked battlenet it may have a critical security hole, this stuff did not happen that much till change over to battlenet. This would explain accounts that are 3 years dormant getting hacked.
My account ahs been "hacked" three times in the last 15 months since I cancelled my WOW account. Makes me wonder about the legitimacy of the emails I am receiving from Blizzard. Each email lets me know that my account is locked and cannot be used until I notify them that I received their email, re-registered the account with them including activation and by buying an authenticator from them. If this was true how does this account keeping getting "hacked" (according to Blizzard, especially if they are locking the account. Many of these closed accounts getting hacked, I believe, is a concerted effort by Blizzard to get people back into the game and to sell autheticators by "scaring" them with a "your account has been hacked email".
My account ahs been "hacked" three times in the last 15 months since I cancelled my WOW account. Makes me wonder about the legitimacy of the emails I am receiving from Blizzard. Each email lets me know that my account is locked and cannot be used until I notify them that I received their email, re-registered the account with them including activation and by buying an authenticator from them. If this was true how does this account keeping getting "hacked" (according to Blizzard, especially if they are locking the account. Many of these closed accounts getting hacked, I believe, is a concerted effort by Blizzard to get people back into the game and to sell autheticators by "scaring" them with a "your account has been hacked email".
My account was hacked half a year after I left the game, so they hacked a dormant account. And since I block any emails but from known private senders and didn't open any Battlenet mail, sort of throws that BS argument out the Window. I think a lot of people are drinking the WOW PR on this, they want you to think its your fault, never mind that Battlenet has constantly had security holes in it since it's inception. Battlenet and account hacks go hand in hand. The Authenticator is just a way for them to not only not be liable for their own actions but to charge you for it. As far as im concerned game hacks and in game security of vital information is their job, we already purchased the game.
There is also no way this many people all of a sudden forgot how to have thoughts and run security and not surf malicious sites, there is no coincidence that big.
My account has been hacked I think twice so far this year. The most recent was a week ago and I found that somehow an authenticator was added to my account. I emailed blizzard, they released the authenticator from my account within 3 days. Granted... I emailed them on a friday evening to heh heh.
Both times ive gotten my account back rather quickly and without hassle.
Originally posted by Delusive I started receiving emails about an attempt to reset my password. So i knew ahead of time that someone was gonna get in. So I used the support site and reported the problem. I then logged in and changed my password. Unfortunately it still got hacked, and this was a password I have never used before and was changed using my pc at work. So nothing WoW had ever come near it. No keyloggers etc. I hadn't used my account in months, and why someone wanted my account is beyond me. My highest charater hasn't reached 40 lol. The account got hacked and then suspended and then locked for RL currcny exchange or some crap. I wrote support again, nothing in over a week. I try to login into the account and it wants an authenticator code. I've never owned an authenticator. So I guess my account is lost. Which I don't really care that much since I gave up on the game. If I really crave it again, I'll just find a free server somewhere. The move to battlenet was the dumbest move ever. I never had any problems until then. They make it based on your email, so anyone who has your email has half the battle already won. That is like basic common sense. WoW is an alright game and all, but it really needs to work on the security issues. (unless this is some stupid game they play to get someone to buy an authenticator)
My account ahs been "hacked" three times in the last 15 months since I cancelled my WOW account. Makes me wonder about the legitimacy of the emails I am receiving from Blizzard. Each email lets me know that my account is locked and cannot be used until I notify them that I received their email, re-registered the account with them including activation and by buying an authenticator from them. If this was true how does this account keeping getting "hacked" (according to Blizzard, especially if they are locking the account. Many of these closed accounts getting hacked, I believe, is a concerted effort by Blizzard to get people back into the game and to sell autheticators by "scaring" them with a "your account has been hacked email".
I think part of the problem is these emails aren't from Blizzard. People are getting fraudalent emails saying their account has been stopped- they go to the link which gives exactly the same screen and type in their username and password. Hey presto they know your username and password.
I think we need to consider the fact that WoW brought in a lot of people who were not gamers and especially people who wanted to play it that aren't necessarily Internet Savvy...
How many housewives have I met that play WoW but barely know how to access the internet? Then of course there are tons of naive people that think just because something seems legitimate it must be so. Since the number of users who play WoW is so great even the simplest phishing email will garner some kind of result.
It's what happens when people want to just play WoW and don't care where the addons come from and believe things that in game people tell them. I'm sure there are quite a few people who get their kids to set the game up for them so that all they do is double click ont he shortcut on the desktop, type in their very basic pasword and burn through a few hours of game time.
That is a load of bs i had a friend that was hacked he is 50 years old, does not use addons, does not surf on that machine all browsers were removed,did not give his passwords to no one had kaspersky internet security,threatfire,keyscrambler premium, authenticator and he still got hacked, he received no emails about his account being hacked and his account was dormant for 6 months.
So the day he found out he was hacked he brought his pc to my computer shop, i am a security expert with 25 years in the field.
I ran whole series of scans from dvd, rootkits trojans,virus,keyloggers over from 10 top then vendors, then manually checked his system with autoruns nothing out of the ordinary.
Just today a customer with 2 accounts same thing , i scanned his machine and manually checked it not a keylogger in sight.
What could be the cause one of 4 things
1) someone at blizzard is selling accounts to gold sellers
2) there is a security hole in blizzards isp or internet someone hacked feed/router and set up a packet sniffer.
3) peoples routers are getting hacked or there is a critical security flaw in windows
4) Someone hacked battlenet it may have a critical security hole, this stuff did not happen that much till change over to battlenet.
This would explain accounts that are 3 years dormant getting hacked.
5) your friend did not give you all the relevant information about what he did with his computer. Intentional or not.
Having a friend you trust doesn't mean he is incapable of doing something that put himself at risk or that he unknowingly encountered a threat in his normal activities. Being 50 years old doesn't mean he can't make a mistake.
It is interesting why he has no browsers on his computer. Well technically anyhow.
Your friend has an email account for his battlenet account right? So if he can't access his email from the computer he plays wow on, he must access his email on another computer. A hacker only needs access to his email account to take full control of wow AND then the hacker can delete any email he chooses. That certainly would explain why he never saw an email about the problem don't you agree?
So for all your scanning expertise, his security precautions on his wow computer and everything else you have described why he couldn't possibly get hacked, it is all moot, because he does wow releated things on another computer.
I would think a security expert with 25 years experience would have recognized this instead of rushing to the conclusion that only blizzard could be responsible for your friends problems.
I think we need to consider the fact that WoW brought in a lot of people who were not gamers and especially people who wanted to play it that aren't necessarily Internet Savvy...
How many housewives have I met that play WoW but barely know how to access the internet? Then of course there are tons of naive people that think just because something seems legitimate it must be so. Since the number of users who play WoW is so great even the simplest phishing email will garner some kind of result.
It's what happens when people want to just play WoW and don't care where the addons come from and believe things that in game people tell them. I'm sure there are quite a few people who get their kids to set the game up for them so that all they do is double click ont he shortcut on the desktop, type in their very basic pasword and burn through a few hours of game time.
That is a load of bs i had a friend that was hacked he is 50 years old, does not use addons, does not surf on that machine all browsers were removed,did not give his passwords to no one had kaspersky internet security,threatfire,keyscrambler premium, authenticator and he still got hacked, he received no emails about his account being hacked and his account was dormant for 6 months.
So the day he found out he was hacked he brought his pc to my computer shop, i am a security expert with 25 years in the field.
I ran whole series of scans from dvd, rootkits trojans,virus,keyloggers over from 10 top then vendors, then manually checked his system with autoruns nothing out of the ordinary.
Just today a customer with 2 accounts same thing , i scanned his machine and manually checked it not a keylogger in sight.
What could be the cause one of 4 things
1) someone at blizzard is selling accounts to gold sellers
2) there is a security hole in blizzards isp or internet someone hacked feed/router and set up a packet sniffer.
3) peoples routers are getting hacked or there is a critical security flaw in windows
4) Someone hacked battlenet it may have a critical security hole, this stuff did not happen that much till change over to battlenet.
This would explain accounts that are 3 years dormant getting hacked.
5) your friend did not give you all the relevant information about what he did with his computer. Intentional or not.
Having a friend you trust doesn't mean he is incapable of doing something that put himself at risk or that he unknowingly encountered a threat in his normal activities. Being 50 years old doesn't mean he can't make a mistake.
It is interesting why he has no browsers on his computer. Well technically anyhow.
Your friend has an email account for his battlenet account right? So if he can't access his email from the computer he plays wow on, he must access his email on another computer. A hacker only needs access to his email account to take full control of wow AND then the hacker can delete any email he chooses. That certainly would explain why he never saw an email about the problem don't you agree?
So for all your scanning expertise, his security precautions on his wow computer and everything else you have described why he couldn't possibly get hacked, it is all moot, because he does wow releated things on another computer.
I would think a security expert with 25 years experience would have recognized this instead of rushing to the conclusion that only blizzard could be responsible for your friends problems.
The email account he had that was used to register his wow account no longer exists ,he changed isp i tried sending email to his old address it does not exist, it ws not transfered to his new address because he does not have access to his old address at the time of the hack, that is why he recieved no emails so it was impossible for his email account to be hacked.
He had to send in photo id to have his account email changed when he found out he got hacked, chances are there is a huge security flaw in battlenet allowing hackers to brute force hack account , how do you explain 3 year dormant accounts getting hacked?.
Did you read the post he had a keyboard encrypter installed keylogging his computer would only get a hacker something like this:
Saying it can't be blizzard is also silly nobody even millitary is immune to hacking even banks and atms have been hacked there has not been one business that has not been hacked at one time or another.
Many OS have security holes that can be exploited there is no such thing as 100% secure even the internet is not secure chances are hackers have found a way to either brute force or use an exploit to get passwords on battlenet.
Players that have 3 yr old dormant accounts getting hacked on accounts that changed isp and email addresses and having them not changed and the game uninstalled could only be done by the 2 above methods.
The email account he had that was used to register his wow account no longer exists ,he changed isp i tried sending email to his old address it does not exist, it ws not transfered to his new address because he does not have access to his old address at the time of the hack, that is why he recieved no emails so it was impossible for his email account to be hacked.
He had to send in photo id to have his account email changed when he found out he got hacked, chances are there is a huge security flaw in battlenet allowing hackers to brute force hack account , how do you explain 3 year dormant accounts getting hacked?.
Did you read the post he had a keyboard encrypter installed keylogging his computer would only get a hacker something like this:
Saying it can't be blizzard is also silly nobody even millitary is immune to hacking even banks and atms have been hacked there has not been one business that has not been hacked at one time or another.
Many OS have security holes that can be exploited there is no such thing as 100% secure even the internet is not secure chances are hackers have found a way to either brute force or use an exploit to get passwords on battlenet.
Players that have 3 yr old dormant accounts getting hacked on accounts that changed isp and email addresses and having them not changed and the game uninstalled could only be done by the 2 above methods.
So wait just one second. Your friend didn't even have access to the email account his wow account was registered to and that little nugget of information didn't raise any alarms with you about your friends level of security? I'm sorry, but your friend is a retard and no matter how many times you revise your story, you just are not being objective due to your friendship with him.
On top of that you really think keyloggers only scan keyboard input and the term isn't just a misnomer much like the term "hacking" we are using right now? You can use anything you want to scramble, encrypt or whatever you want to with your input to the wow laucnher and it won't matter. Any decent trojan is just going to suck the information straight from the account and password objects in the wow launcher. Unless you think your military ecyrption is creating a secure link between your keyboard and the blizzard authentication servers.
Then you make the claim that blizzard is getting brute force attacked which is such a dumb claim that it isn't even funny. As if blizzard just lets hackers endlessly try random passwords for accounts, can't detect it or doesn't have some basic security 101 account lockout policy in place.
It is as if you don't really understand all these terms and programs your keep bringing up in each new version of your story.
Lastly, no one is saying it CAN'T be blizzard. They are just saying it isn't very likely. The lack of understanding and misinformation in this thread is pretty high and not making a very compelling argument to look at anything other than the weakest link the account security which is the user. Your friend included.
The email account he had that was used to register his wow account no longer exists ,he changed isp i tried sending email to his old address it does not exist, it ws not transfered to his new address because he does not have access to his old address at the time of the hack, that is why he recieved no emails so it was impossible for his email account to be hacked.
He had to send in photo id to have his account email changed when he found out he got hacked, chances are there is a huge security flaw in battlenet allowing hackers to brute force hack account , how do you explain 3 year dormant accounts getting hacked?.
Did you read the post he had a keyboard encrypter installed keylogging his computer would only get a hacker something like this:
Saying it can't be blizzard is also silly nobody even millitary is immune to hacking even banks and atms have been hacked there has not been one business that has not been hacked at one time or another.
Many OS have security holes that can be exploited there is no such thing as 100% secure even the internet is not secure chances are hackers have found a way to either brute force or use an exploit to get passwords on battlenet.
Players that have 3 yr old dormant accounts getting hacked on accounts that changed isp and email addresses and having them not changed and the game uninstalled could only be done by the 2 above methods.
So wait just one second. Your friend didn't even have access to the email account his wow account was registered to and that little nugget of information didn't raise any alarms with you about your friends level of security? I'm sorry, but your friend is a retard and no matter how many times you revise your story, you just are not being objective due to your friendship with him.
On top of that you really think keyloggers only scan keyboard input and the term isn't just a misnomer much like the term "hacking" we are using right now? You can use anything you want to scramble, encrypt or whatever you want to with your input to the wow laucnher and it won't matter. Any decent trojan is just going to suck the information straight from the account and password objects in the wow launcher. Unless you think your military ecyrption is creating a secure link between your keyboard and the blizzard authentication servers.
Then you make the claim that blizzard is getting brute force attacked which is such a dumb claim that it isn't even funny. As if blizzard just lets hackers endlessly try random passwords for accounts, can't detect it or doesn't have some basic security 101 account lockout policy in place.
It is as if you don't really understand all these terms and programs your keep bringing up in each new version of your story.
Lastly, no one is saying it CAN'T be blizzard. They are just saying it isn't very likely. The lack of understanding and misinformation in this thread is pretty high and not making a very compelling argument to look at anything other than the weakest link the account security which is the user. Your friend included.
So how long have you been working for Blizzard? I have never seen anyone squirm and try so hard to find the most nuanced thing to explain why its everyone's fault but Blizzards.
More than likely Blizzard dosent have to be hacked, some employee is opening a port into there network for a fee to gold farmers. I mean how else can you explain how when I got hacked, I could log on to another toon on the SAME account at the same the hacker was ore farming? I followed my own toon around until they got disconected.
The inactive accounts are being stolen due to Blizzard allowing the information to be "leaked". This way the accounts of those that no longer play can be counted as sub numbers during quarterly reports. The fact that its gold farmers paying the subs is irrelevant and therefore the account is countable, so to speak. This also answers the question as to why sub numbers have remained steady.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
So how long have you been working for Blizzard? I have never seen anyone squirm and try so hard to find the most nuanced thing to explain why its everyone's fault but Blizzards.
More than likely Blizzard dosent have to be hacked, some employee is opening a port into there network for a fee to gold farmers. I mean how else can you explain how when I got hacked, I could log on to another toon on the SAME account at the same the hacker was ore farming? I followed my own toon around until they got disconected.
Is this really the best you have? Calling me a blizzard employee and thinking this is as easy as opening a port?
Hacked accounts are costing blizzard millions upon millions of dollars and you really think they couldn't find out if some employee was responsible? This problem has been going on for years and years now. To accept this premise we have to assume blizzard is filled with idiots and that end users somehow spontaniously became secure.
I assume you think the flood of phishing emails, infected websites, trojans, fake goolge ads, stolen email and everything else is just some clever cover story by this mastermind insider and in no way has any relationship to the amount of hacked accounts we are seeing.
Nope, it must be blizzard, because this thread is filled with examples of players who are computer security experts. They have norton, firewalls and spysweeper! These high tech advanced tools render them imprevious to stupidity and internet threats.
Now if only blizzard, ncsoft and other multi million dollar companies had people with the same network security credential or they could afford software that is sold at bestbuy so that they could detect something as sophisiticated as port being opened to their network, because opening a port disables every type of security and encryption ever invented.
Comments
I laughed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming
"...Historically victim-blaming is the trait most often exhibited by the criminally insane..."
I highly doubt that google would risk their reputation (and consumer trust in their product) by selling their customers information to spammers/gold sellers of all people.
Also considering how much hackers/gold farmers are costing blizzard in terms of lost customers and massive amounts of customers service, I doubt they are selling the login names to their customers accounts to gold sellers, who are the root of the hacking problems.
This thread is getting really absurd.
Yeah... I haven't been following with what's going in WoW lately and some dude, fanboy or not, will probably come running to correct me. But yeah...
Idk look at it this way. There are currently 11.5 million subscribers in WoW. Something like that. So basically since there's soo many players in WoW it only seems like there are a lot of players getting hacked.
For example(Now remember this is an example. This is not realistic. This is just an example to that will help those who don't understand me... well... understand me).
Alright... so lets just say that 15% of accounts in one mmorpg are being hacked and 15% of accounts in WoW are being hacked. Obviously the accounts in WoW that are being hacked are more than the hacked accounts in the other mmorpg.
So it only seems like WoW has a lot of ppl getting hacked. Truth is the amount of accounts being hacked in WoW out of the total amount of accounts in WoW is the same percentage as the other mmorpg.
Basically what I'm trying to say that since WoW has so many players it only seems like a lot of ppl are getting hacked.
... Yeah so that's my theory. Then again I really have no idea what's really going on
"Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet." -Bob Marley
I'm probably one of those people who just get wet.
I'd say that's a pretty valid theory. Yet, I would go farther and say that hackers target WoW because of the population, so there are more trojans and keyloggers dedicated to pilfering WoW accounts than the average MMO. Not to mention the roughly 8 to 1 phishing scam rate for WoW vs Aion in my inbox(even though I quit playing WoW half a year ago <.<).
I don't have an account with Blizzard...
Funnily enough I do have the random phishing emails.
To the OP question:
The ways of grabbing someones account information now a days is getting insane.
Viewing a video online without having everything patched and updated could even get you in trouble.
I used to think I was a carefull user, but bang hacked.
To this day I don't know how it happend, because of that I had to get an authenticator. (I have a firewall up, malware protection and an antivirus program going but one must have been out of date and something slipped threw)
Most of the ppl who've gotten hacked probably deserved it, but the hackers are getting greedy and now the ppl who otherwise think they are safe are getting caught off guard.
Look up on youtube wow hacks and youll be amazed at the step by step instructions people know of to steal accounts and gold, I dont know many other games where it is blatantly posted on youtube and how easy it is.
playing eq2 and two worlds
I get lots of WoW phishing spam, and I get Aion phishing spams in both English and French - for some unknown reason.
I'd say they're about level in my in-box, which curiously is not the address for my battle.net acount, so as far as I can tell it's random. The spam I get on my gaming mail account is minimal, as the address is (by design) minimally used on the web.
I don't really buy into the conspiracy theories, but one p***ed off employee with access to account info could do untold damage if they felt like it. It'd be foolish to ignore the human element, since that's where the most secure systems tend to break down ; )
How do the phishers have the e-mail that I made specifically for the battlenet account?
As I said, I don't use the e-mail for anything but the battlnet login...
Do a google seach of how do spammers get your email address and you will see tons of ways they can.
It is amazing how little a user has to do to be exposed to such threats.
I started receiving emails about an attempt to reset my password. So i knew ahead of time that someone was gonna get in. So I used the support site and reported the problem. I then logged in and changed my password. Unfortunately it still got hacked, and this was a password I have never used before and was changed using my pc at work. So nothing WoW had ever come near it. No keyloggers etc.
I hadn't used my account in months, and why someone wanted my account is beyond me. My highest charater hasn't reached 40 lol. The account got hacked and then suspended and then locked for RL currcny exchange or some crap. I wrote support again, nothing in over a week.
I try to login into the account and it wants an authenticator code. I've never owned an authenticator. So I guess my account is lost. Which I don't really care that much since I gave up on the game. If I really crave it again, I'll just find a free server somewhere.
The move to battlenet was the dumbest move ever. I never had any problems until then. They make it based on your email, so anyone who has your email has half the battle already won. That is like basic common sense.
WoW is an alright game and all, but it really needs to work on the security issues. (unless this is some stupid game they play to get someone to buy an authenticator)
simple reasoning is that (1) they either buy gold (2) pick up a trojan from a dodgy website or (3) fall victim to the increasingly unbelievably good fraud WoW emails. Honestly this last point, I have 2 that luckily (1) defaulted to my spam box and (2) sent to an email address that isn't one related with my WoW account.
(last 3 emails I've had their address has been Wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com and WoWaccountEU@review.blizzard.com and even one from billing@Blizzard.com that the only evidence is false is when you hover over the link and get a name with security spelt wrong)
So the day he found out he was hacked he brought his pc to my computer shop, i am a security expert with 25 years in the field.
I ran whole series of scans from dvd, rootkits trojans,virus,keyloggers over from 10 top then vendors, then manually checked his system with autoruns nothing out of the ordinary.
Just today a customer with 2 accounts same thing , i scanned his machine and manually checked it not a keylogger in sight.
What could be the cause one of 4 things
1) someone at blizzard is selling accounts to gold sellers
2) there is a security hole in blizzards isp or internet someone hacked feed/router and set up a packet sniffer.
3) peoples routers are getting hacked or there is a critical security flaw in windows
4) Someone hacked battlenet it may have a critical security hole, this stuff did not happen that much till change over to battlenet.
This would explain accounts that are 3 years dormant getting hacked.
My account ahs been "hacked" three times in the last 15 months since I cancelled my WOW account. Makes me wonder about the legitimacy of the emails I am receiving from Blizzard. Each email lets me know that my account is locked and cannot be used until I notify them that I received their email, re-registered the account with them including activation and by buying an authenticator from them. If this was true how does this account keeping getting "hacked" (according to Blizzard, especially if they are locking the account. Many of these closed accounts getting hacked, I believe, is a concerted effort by Blizzard to get people back into the game and to sell autheticators by "scaring" them with a "your account has been hacked email".
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
My account was hacked half a year after I left the game, so they hacked a dormant account. And since I block any emails but from known private senders and didn't open any Battlenet mail, sort of throws that BS argument out the Window. I think a lot of people are drinking the WOW PR on this, they want you to think its your fault, never mind that Battlenet has constantly had security holes in it since it's inception. Battlenet and account hacks go hand in hand. The Authenticator is just a way for them to not only not be liable for their own actions but to charge you for it. As far as im concerned game hacks and in game security of vital information is their job, we already purchased the game.
There is also no way this many people all of a sudden forgot how to have thoughts and run security and not surf malicious sites, there is no coincidence that big.
My account has been hacked I think twice so far this year. The most recent was a week ago and I found that somehow an authenticator was added to my account. I emailed blizzard, they released the authenticator from my account within 3 days. Granted... I emailed them on a friday evening to heh heh.
Both times ive gotten my account back rather quickly and without hassle.
I think part of the problem is these emails aren't from Blizzard. People are getting fraudalent emails saying their account has been stopped- they go to the link which gives exactly the same screen and type in their username and password. Hey presto they know your username and password.
5) your friend did not give you all the relevant information about what he did with his computer. Intentional or not.
Having a friend you trust doesn't mean he is incapable of doing something that put himself at risk or that he unknowingly encountered a threat in his normal activities. Being 50 years old doesn't mean he can't make a mistake.
It is interesting why he has no browsers on his computer. Well technically anyhow.
Your friend has an email account for his battlenet account right? So if he can't access his email from the computer he plays wow on, he must access his email on another computer. A hacker only needs access to his email account to take full control of wow AND then the hacker can delete any email he chooses. That certainly would explain why he never saw an email about the problem don't you agree?
So for all your scanning expertise, his security precautions on his wow computer and everything else you have described why he couldn't possibly get hacked, it is all moot, because he does wow releated things on another computer.
I would think a security expert with 25 years experience would have recognized this instead of rushing to the conclusion that only blizzard could be responsible for your friends problems.
The email account he had that was used to register his wow account no longer exists ,he changed isp i tried sending email to his old address it does not exist, it ws not transfered to his new address because he does not have access to his old address at the time of the hack, that is why he recieved no emails so it was impossible for his email account to be hacked.
He had to send in photo id to have his account email changed when he found out he got hacked, chances are there is a huge security flaw in battlenet allowing hackers to brute force hack account , how do you explain 3 year dormant accounts getting hacked?.
Did you read the post he had a keyboard encrypter installed keylogging his computer would only get a hacker something like this:
e8jhhdH8()#ey854@!@|f40-34
G+_?/+3,fed0=634Xe$(b
Saying it can't be blizzard is also silly nobody even millitary is immune to hacking even banks and atms have been hacked there has not been one business that has not been hacked at one time or another.
Many OS have security holes that can be exploited there is no such thing as 100% secure even the internet is not secure chances are hackers have found a way to either brute force or use an exploit to get passwords on battlenet.
Players that have 3 yr old dormant accounts getting hacked on accounts that changed isp and email addresses and having them not changed and the game uninstalled could only be done by the 2 above methods.
So wait just one second. Your friend didn't even have access to the email account his wow account was registered to and that little nugget of information didn't raise any alarms with you about your friends level of security? I'm sorry, but your friend is a retard and no matter how many times you revise your story, you just are not being objective due to your friendship with him.
On top of that you really think keyloggers only scan keyboard input and the term isn't just a misnomer much like the term "hacking" we are using right now? You can use anything you want to scramble, encrypt or whatever you want to with your input to the wow laucnher and it won't matter. Any decent trojan is just going to suck the information straight from the account and password objects in the wow launcher. Unless you think your military ecyrption is creating a secure link between your keyboard and the blizzard authentication servers.
Then you make the claim that blizzard is getting brute force attacked which is such a dumb claim that it isn't even funny. As if blizzard just lets hackers endlessly try random passwords for accounts, can't detect it or doesn't have some basic security 101 account lockout policy in place.
It is as if you don't really understand all these terms and programs your keep bringing up in each new version of your story.
Lastly, no one is saying it CAN'T be blizzard. They are just saying it isn't very likely. The lack of understanding and misinformation in this thread is pretty high and not making a very compelling argument to look at anything other than the weakest link the account security which is the user. Your friend included.
Haradek Shadowstalker
EQ,EQII,SWG,AO,DAOC,Planetside,COH,WOW
The inactive accounts are being stolen due to Blizzard allowing the information to be "leaked". This way the accounts of those that no longer play can be counted as sub numbers during quarterly reports. The fact that its gold farmers paying the subs is irrelevant and therefore the account is countable, so to speak. This also answers the question as to why sub numbers have remained steady.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
Is this really the best you have? Calling me a blizzard employee and thinking this is as easy as opening a port?
Hacked accounts are costing blizzard millions upon millions of dollars and you really think they couldn't find out if some employee was responsible? This problem has been going on for years and years now. To accept this premise we have to assume blizzard is filled with idiots and that end users somehow spontaniously became secure.
I assume you think the flood of phishing emails, infected websites, trojans, fake goolge ads, stolen email and everything else is just some clever cover story by this mastermind insider and in no way has any relationship to the amount of hacked accounts we are seeing.
Nope, it must be blizzard, because this thread is filled with examples of players who are computer security experts. They have norton, firewalls and spysweeper! These high tech advanced tools render them imprevious to stupidity and internet threats.
Now if only blizzard, ncsoft and other multi million dollar companies had people with the same network security credential or they could afford software that is sold at bestbuy so that they could detect something as sophisiticated as port being opened to their network, because opening a port disables every type of security and encryption ever invented.
How clever of them.
Please explain how I could have 2 toons from the same account on at the same time. I have since tried to do this on my own and can not do so.
Haradek Shadowstalker
EQ,EQII,SWG,AO,DAOC,Planetside,COH,WOW
Bear with me, but why do so many people get hacked in WoW?
Because out of those million players a few thousand click on phising mails coming from a fake Blissard address.
Add another few thousand who bought gold and leveling services with their accounts.
If it were a Blizzard problem, the game would have been unplayable since everyone would have been hacked.
Millions play without being hacked.