Hackers have been targetting fan sites to hack people's passwords. It's the often lax security of these fan sites that are easy prey to hackers and people often uses the same login/passwords on their WoW account and these fan sites. The WoW authenticator is pretty much a god sent and it makes hacking into your WoW account incredibly difficult if not impossible.
It was silly to think that blizzard is giving accounts to gold sellers. It still is.
Can there be someone inside blizzard, making money on the side by selling these accounts and such? Of course.
But I still get emails for Cata "Beta" on the email I use for sites such as this. I also started adding in random capital letters on some sites, and now notice I get emails with those same random capital letters for my "blizzard" account.
Anyways, stop clicking every single link in your email box about your wow account. Stop downloading bad porn/games/movies.
Quite easy to just blame it on Blizzard isn't it? By the way they have a free Authenticator app, so no they aren't trying to make money off of you. Also as far as I remember they said they made no profit at all selling the athenticators.
I was hacked once a very long time ago i visited a website and got a flash or java exploit which put the keylogging trojan on my computer. I had no idea it was there until blizzard sent me an email saying they locked my account due to potential hacking.
The retrival process went great for me, the hackers didnt even take anything, wether that was due to blizzards prompt response, or i had nothing of value /shrug. I did notice they played my twink though as he was located in a different place than i had left him.
Ive recently removed the FREE mobile authenticator from my account and have yet to be hacked again. Keep your email password and wow passwords different and dont click on everything that looks shiny or too good to be true.
Protection of your personal information starts with you, and its your responsibility to ensure its safety, or face the consequences.
**edit and i just read the article, glad to see the poster didnt take any reponsibility for his or perhaps someone else using his computers surfing habits and instead put on his tin foil hat and stomped his feet blaming blizzard. This "news" article isnt good for your site, and just encourages more feet stomping and personal irresponsibility.
Same exact thing happen to me. Except, I hadn't logged in for 9 months.
I get an email that said my password was changed. At first, I didn't care, but then I felt violated and wanted to correct this atrocity.
The part that makes me think its partly Blizzard's fault is nothing else was compromised. Not my bank account, not my credit card, nothing, even, though, I use those nonstop on my computer. So, some hacker sees all these credit card numbers, and my bank password, but goes after WoW? Which, I remind you I hadn't played in 9 months. Doesn't add up friends.
Your account got phished. Company has your password. Never need to ask you for any account information. Hello it's all logged on there servers. Have some computer sense and don't blame the company when you're stupid enough to click on things.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
It is really odd that this happens so often... Could it just be that with all the profit the gold sellers have gotten they have room after room of brute force account hacking machines setup?
Or suppose it could be Blizzard... how could you prove it or do anything about it?
Take screenshots of your accounts being breached and gather people who truly had their accounts penetrated, Sue and see how far you get in reaching a settlement.
When a game gets hack, there is no telling how much of the system is vulnerable. This is a reason why I play MMORPGs on Linux + Wine because most attacks are meant for use against Windows and thanks to Steve Jobs ranting how a mac is inpenetrable, entire criminal groups of hackers are attacking macs just to shut him up.
When something does happen...I can claim that since I am on Linux that the attack is not on my end so those conditions above blizzard loves to rant about, are dismal failures to really prove...Enough for ONE person to seek some Justice since just logging into an infected or penetrated network or game which you are paying for can leave your system vulnerable..
and that is never fair....Paying for a Service to have that service infected intentionally to maximize profits between Adservers, UserAccounts and anything else they think off...Sorry, but its true.
Think about email. I have my own Private Email handled by myself....and thanks to my settings in a period of six years I have only gotten eight pieces of spam. I am just ONE person, imagine what yahoo, MSN, gmail and everyone else can do....if I am just one person and they have their own teams to handle things..
The same is true with Blizzard. Sorry, but they Intentionally let people breach and wallow in it all.
If you ever think about Suing Blizzard, forget about going after Blizzard, Sue Vivendi Games who is the parent company of Blizzard and that will send a message to them. ^_^
I've been playing MMOs for years as well and have (knock on wood) never had my account hacked.
That said, I also tend to stay on the "slightly paranoid" side of things and either use the windows keyboard or straight copy/paste to enter sensitive information.
I also have addons in my browser that block scripts and do not allow flash movies to automatically start wthout my permission.
That said... I do believe Blizzard is doing their part to prevent hacks from occuring.
They require a login and password to access your account.. it's up to the individual to keep that information safe.
They provide plenty of information on their site on how to avoid having your account compromised and general system security. They can't force people to read and/or follow it. It's up to the individual to do so.
I find it rather incredulous that people complain about spending ~$10 on a security token that can save them potentially hundreds of dollars worth of playtime on their account. I find it equally incredulous that there are people out there who scoff and cry "greed!!!" at spending that much on something to protect their account, but couldn't open their wallets fast enough to spend $25 on a frigging mount.
That said... I fully believe it when some people say they didn't go to any shady websites, or didn't click on any questionable links... that they're being sincere. However, I think in those cases, they didn't knowingly click on any questionable links or go to any shady websites.
Hackers are sneaky SOBs.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Hadn't played wow for years and my account go hacked. I would have considered going back to check out Cataclysm but if blizzard can't protect it's information any better than that it's not worth taking a risk on.
OK !!! ALLl of you people that can name 9999 ways it is his fault for getting hacked.... You ARE WRONG. I played WOW for one month directly after the first axpansioin came out. Zfter the 30 days were up I uninstalled and havent tried to play till cata's release. And GUESS WHAT i was hacked as well. I had an email account I set up just for WOW, I used a password I only used in wow, and I havnt logged in in YEARS... YEARS I TELL YOU. Ther is no way anyone hit me with a keylogger on a game that hasnt even been installed for A very long time. In fact WHen the account was hacked and used for gold farming I was in Africa and had been there for over a year.
Now I am not saying that Blizzard did it .. but I am saying it is pure stupidity to place a blanket of blame on everyone when you have no idea what you are talking about. In my case, I am convinced Blizzard was hacked in some way or another. They will not recieve another months sub from me ever again let alone the fee for a keylogger.
I didn't bother reading all these responses, but this is usually how your account gets hacked: someone hacks a less secure site, such as a forum of some description. People usually use the same password all the time, or at least for game-related stuff. So. That's how it happens. Doesn't mean you downloaded anything bad. You didn't go to a phishing site. It was just a less secure site getting hacked, giving the hacker the contents of the database, which happened to include your UN/PW.
Originally posted by geldonyetich
Wow, I knew you guys were pretty desparate to slam the game, but hacking the web page of a major game site so a user review masquarades as an official one? Pretty impressive.
[Edit: no, after seeing there's an actual video associated with it, I guess not, despite the wierd way GameSpot distributes its content making it looks like the reviewer didn't even write this.]
if u get an email from blizzard to login ur accoun from link X , put it as spam , simple , blizz never asks u about passwords or to login somewhere , if so , ur dumb
The best part about all of this is that those that have (luckily) never been hacked feel like it will Never happen to them, that they are too smart, and that if you are hacked well then it must be your own fault. They are just plain smarter and more savvy and can avoid it at all costs. They are perfect.
Arrogance at its finest.
I, on the other hand, truly feel for those that are hacked. I understand the blatant nakedness you feel after its been done. That, even if it might have been your fault, that Blizz treats you like a moron for not BUYING its device. Which then reeks of an opportunistic scam. I also understand that we are human, we make mistakes, and even the most stalwart of us IT people and whatnot WILL be hacked. Its not just individuals that get hacked, big businesses are much more lucrative targets. Its only a matter of time. That why, although its like bribing the police to protect you, I highly suggest the authenticator, not only to protect you from hackers, but from Blizz as well.
This ^
Ive never been hacked either, but today I wonder if this is more about luck then anything else. Im getting tired of those arrogant comments too. I dont believe for a second that all those people who think they never will get hacked, run every security measure possible. If they use email and the browser on the same pc, then more likely is that they are not unlucky so far. For some malware/virus it takes a while before AV software catches up.
I browse and email on a linux pc and use my gaming pc just for games. Most people only have one pc and when using windows xp you wont be 100% secure. Unless you take very spartan security measures. People underestimate the ways their pc can get infected.
WoW is the big game in NA, making horrendously big money each and every month. So why is there all the BS with the authenticators? Are they not making enough money to include them with the purchase of the game? Or is it that they enjoy wasting the resources on tech support to help give people their stuff back? I seriously doubt that the cost of the authenticators is much more if any, then the cost of the effort to fix the problem after-the-fact.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
What lost me is that your friend called and said your account was hacked. How did he know? Was HE using your account? If so, maybe it was his fault? Of course, maybe he saw your toon logged in and behaving strangely. Just wondering
WoW is a weird one. i have played since beta stoped playing before Lich King and started again a month before cata. now before i could start again i had to merge my account with battle.net. the same day i did that i started to get spam from noreply blizzard with is the fake one. i have never gotten those mails before and now i got spammed like crazy about how some one is doing nasty stuff to my account and i need to use there link and login to save it (kinda).
and now about 24h ago my account got hacked and they stole my gold and used my miner as a bot. how i know this well i changed my pass and logged in to find a bag full of ore and my gold missing. im just thankful that support got all my stuff back the same day.
but there is still a part of me that think that blizzard (or some one at blizz) have something to do with all the hacking. it is just weird that they get to you the same day you get back.
Benjamin Franklin wrote the best quote to use for MMOs in development. Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.
Blizzard blaming us for our accounts being hacked is annoying. I have been hacked, as well as everyone I know that has an account. I use no script, adblock, etc. for firefox. and use MSE and Malwarebytes, and have never had anything detected. Yet they still blame me. lol Screw you Blizzard.
Comments
Hackers have been targetting fan sites to hack people's passwords. It's the often lax security of these fan sites that are easy prey to hackers and people often uses the same login/passwords on their WoW account and these fan sites. The WoW authenticator is pretty much a god sent and it makes hacking into your WoW account incredibly difficult if not impossible.
Ok in every RANT there is some truth , the truth is that all pre battle net accounts have been comprimised .
Any new battle net account founded on there old email is comprimised .
Why only people can speculate , and truth will never come on table , not that people need truth .
Blizzard customer support , is not the blaim , infact blizzard customer support is setup excellently .
Blizzard customer support follows infact all MAJOR GOOD enterprises rules , thus infact is quite superb .
Sadly if you get hacked after battlenet merger , you just were not informed good enough .
If you get hacked cause you have Peer to Peer open , you have download programs or sharing programs .
You get hacked cause of using MSN (one of the leakiest programs in the world)
There are so many factors , why your computer can get so easily comprimised .
The aunthenticator , is for those people who want to feel safe , and doesn´t matter if a IT profesional says no need.
Even the Aunthenticator is not unfaillable , like hackers proven by hacking in REAL TIME .
Sorry the target of most stuff and comprimises ,are infact the sever IT professionals .
For a time in MMO games , there was a sever leakage , I wont go into details , but say most of your account informations
minus password , was so easily gotten .
Running a password program once you gotten the email onto Blizzard site wasn´t so hard at all , till success hit .
That if you still use old email for battlenet , means you are already comprimised , notice the amount of Phising emails send your way .
This is what the RANT is about partly true , how the heck did they get my email adress .
But the rant is sadly not true , its not your fault , cause it is in a way .
So many factors in today OS are full of leaks , its not blizzard fault to solve that .
How many still runs XP even knowing that its the most easily accessed system in the world ! .
[Mod Edit]
It was silly to think that blizzard is giving accounts to gold sellers. It still is.
Can there be someone inside blizzard, making money on the side by selling these accounts and such? Of course.
But I still get emails for Cata "Beta" on the email I use for sites such as this. I also started adding in random capital letters on some sites, and now notice I get emails with those same random capital letters for my "blizzard" account.
Anyways, stop clicking every single link in your email box about your wow account. Stop downloading bad porn/games/movies.
Quite easy to just blame it on Blizzard isn't it? By the way they have a free Authenticator app, so no they aren't trying to make money off of you. Also as far as I remember they said they made no profit at all selling the athenticators.
I was hacked once a very long time ago i visited a website and got a flash or java exploit which put the keylogging trojan on my computer. I had no idea it was there until blizzard sent me an email saying they locked my account due to potential hacking.
The retrival process went great for me, the hackers didnt even take anything, wether that was due to blizzards prompt response, or i had nothing of value /shrug. I did notice they played my twink though as he was located in a different place than i had left him.
Ive recently removed the FREE mobile authenticator from my account and have yet to be hacked again. Keep your email password and wow passwords different and dont click on everything that looks shiny or too good to be true.
Protection of your personal information starts with you, and its your responsibility to ensure its safety, or face the consequences.
**edit and i just read the article, glad to see the poster didnt take any reponsibility for his or perhaps someone else using his computers surfing habits and instead put on his tin foil hat and stomped his feet blaming blizzard. This "news" article isnt good for your site, and just encourages more feet stomping and personal irresponsibility.
The simple fact that they offer a service that you pay for to keep your account safe is a joke.
Discuss the articles content and do not attack the author. This is against our ROC. Please follow them. Thanks.
Same exact thing happen to me. Except, I hadn't logged in for 9 months.
I get an email that said my password was changed. At first, I didn't care, but then I felt violated and wanted to correct this atrocity.
The part that makes me think its partly Blizzard's fault is nothing else was compromised. Not my bank account, not my credit card, nothing, even, though, I use those nonstop on my computer. So, some hacker sees all these credit card numbers, and my bank password, but goes after WoW? Which, I remind you I hadn't played in 9 months. Doesn't add up friends.
This is why I play LOTRO.
Your account got phished. Company has your password. Never need to ask you for any account information. Hello it's all logged on there servers. Have some computer sense and don't blame the company when you're stupid enough to click on things.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
It is really odd that this happens so often... Could it just be that with all the profit the gold sellers have gotten they have room after room of brute force account hacking machines setup?
Or suppose it could be Blizzard... how could you prove it or do anything about it?
Ever heard of class action lawsuits?
Take screenshots of your accounts being breached and gather people who truly had their accounts penetrated, Sue and see how far you get in reaching a settlement.
When a game gets hack, there is no telling how much of the system is vulnerable. This is a reason why I play MMORPGs on Linux + Wine because most attacks are meant for use against Windows and thanks to Steve Jobs ranting how a mac is inpenetrable, entire criminal groups of hackers are attacking macs just to shut him up.
When something does happen...I can claim that since I am on Linux that the attack is not on my end so those conditions above blizzard loves to rant about, are dismal failures to really prove...Enough for ONE person to seek some Justice since just logging into an infected or penetrated network or game which you are paying for can leave your system vulnerable..
and that is never fair....Paying for a Service to have that service infected intentionally to maximize profits between Adservers, UserAccounts and anything else they think off...Sorry, but its true.
Think about email. I have my own Private Email handled by myself....and thanks to my settings in a period of six years I have only gotten eight pieces of spam. I am just ONE person, imagine what yahoo, MSN, gmail and everyone else can do....if I am just one person and they have their own teams to handle things..
The same is true with Blizzard. Sorry, but they Intentionally let people breach and wallow in it all.
If you ever think about Suing Blizzard, forget about going after Blizzard, Sue Vivendi Games who is the parent company of Blizzard and that will send a message to them. ^_^
I've been playing MMOs for years as well and have (knock on wood) never had my account hacked.
That said, I also tend to stay on the "slightly paranoid" side of things and either use the windows keyboard or straight copy/paste to enter sensitive information.
I also have addons in my browser that block scripts and do not allow flash movies to automatically start wthout my permission.
That said... I do believe Blizzard is doing their part to prevent hacks from occuring.
They require a login and password to access your account.. it's up to the individual to keep that information safe.
They provide plenty of information on their site on how to avoid having your account compromised and general system security. They can't force people to read and/or follow it. It's up to the individual to do so.
I find it rather incredulous that people complain about spending ~$10 on a security token that can save them potentially hundreds of dollars worth of playtime on their account. I find it equally incredulous that there are people out there who scoff and cry "greed!!!" at spending that much on something to protect their account, but couldn't open their wallets fast enough to spend $25 on a frigging mount.
That said... I fully believe it when some people say they didn't go to any shady websites, or didn't click on any questionable links... that they're being sincere. However, I think in those cases, they didn't knowingly click on any questionable links or go to any shady websites.
Hackers are sneaky SOBs.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
The severe missuse of the work hack is killing me.... network security admins are rolling over in their graves.
Also, I said it last time and I'll say it again. The quality of this website is diminishing at a rather rapid rate.
Hadn't played wow for years and my account go hacked. I would have considered going back to check out Cataclysm but if blizzard can't protect it's information any better than that it's not worth taking a risk on.
OK !!! ALLl of you people that can name 9999 ways it is his fault for getting hacked.... You ARE WRONG. I played WOW for one month directly after the first axpansioin came out. Zfter the 30 days were up I uninstalled and havent tried to play till cata's release. And GUESS WHAT i was hacked as well. I had an email account I set up just for WOW, I used a password I only used in wow, and I havnt logged in in YEARS... YEARS I TELL YOU. Ther is no way anyone hit me with a keylogger on a game that hasnt even been installed for A very long time. In fact WHen the account was hacked and used for gold farming I was in Africa and had been there for over a year.
Now I am not saying that Blizzard did it .. but I am saying it is pure stupidity to place a blanket of blame on everyone when you have no idea what you are talking about. In my case, I am convinced Blizzard was hacked in some way or another. They will not recieve another months sub from me ever again let alone the fee for a keylogger.
I didn't bother reading all these responses, but this is usually how your account gets hacked: someone hacks a less secure site, such as a forum of some description. People usually use the same password all the time, or at least for game-related stuff. So. That's how it happens. Doesn't mean you downloaded anything bad. You didn't go to a phishing site. It was just a less secure site getting hacked, giving the hacker the contents of the database, which happened to include your UN/PW.
Originally posted by geldonyetich
Wow, I knew you guys were pretty desparate to slam the game, but hacking the web page of a major game site so a user review masquarades as an official one? Pretty impressive.
[Edit: no, after seeing there's an actual video associated with it, I guess not, despite the wierd way GameSpot distributes its content making it looks like the reviewer didn't even write this.]
if u get an email from blizzard to login ur accoun from link X , put it as spam , simple , blizz never asks u about passwords or to login somewhere , if so , ur dumb
OK I can tell ya one way they get your info is hacking the guild sites that many people use and register at.
Many accts get stolen and they will also prey on people with no guild and will invite them and tell them to register at their site.
This ^
Ive never been hacked either, but today I wonder if this is more about luck then anything else. Im getting tired of those arrogant comments too. I dont believe for a second that all those people who think they never will get hacked, run every security measure possible. If they use email and the browser on the same pc, then more likely is that they are not unlucky so far. For some malware/virus it takes a while before AV software catches up.
I browse and email on a linux pc and use my gaming pc just for games. Most people only have one pc and when using windows xp you wont be 100% secure. Unless you take very spartan security measures. People underestimate the ways their pc can get infected.
WoW is the big game in NA, making horrendously big money each and every month. So why is there all the BS with the authenticators? Are they not making enough money to include them with the purchase of the game? Or is it that they enjoy wasting the resources on tech support to help give people their stuff back? I seriously doubt that the cost of the authenticators is much more if any, then the cost of the effort to fix the problem after-the-fact.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
What lost me is that your friend called and said your account was hacked. How did he know? Was HE using your account? If so, maybe it was his fault? Of course, maybe he saw your toon logged in and behaving strangely. Just wondering
Merry Christmas!
Do you know for certain?
WoW is a weird one. i have played since beta stoped playing before Lich King and started again a month before cata. now before i could start again i had to merge my account with battle.net. the same day i did that i started to get spam from noreply blizzard with is the fake one. i have never gotten those mails before and now i got spammed like crazy about how some one is doing nasty stuff to my account and i need to use there link and login to save it (kinda).
and now about 24h ago my account got hacked and they stole my gold and used my miner as a bot. how i know this well i changed my pass and logged in to find a bag full of ore and my gold missing. im just thankful that support got all my stuff back the same day.
but there is still a part of me that think that blizzard (or some one at blizz) have something to do with all the hacking. it is just weird that they get to you the same day you get back.
Benjamin Franklin wrote the best quote to use for MMOs in development.
Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.
Blizzard blaming us for our accounts being hacked is annoying. I have been hacked, as well as everyone I know that has an account. I use no script, adblock, etc. for firefox. and use MSE and Malwarebytes, and have never had anything detected. Yet they still blame me. lol Screw you Blizzard.