FFFFF. Someone hacked my WoW account.

[Bex]

Sometimes Blizz is great, others... not so much. At one point hacking was so rampant that I assumed Blizz was in on it.... I am going to go put on my tin foil hat now. (^.^)

[lordlundar]

There's one going around, email wise, that looks exactly like a Battle Net Account Change Notice. But the included link goes elsewhere of course. The urls always start with battle.net. But they're really battle.net-support.com or something similar.

I get it every other week or so. =p

But yeah, it has to have been a keylogger or an email.

This one. I've had it pop up myself. It will usually start off with "http://us.battle.net.support.com/" or something similar to catch people unaware.

Two ways to check if it's a fraud:

-Look closely at the address. Blizzards is "http://us.battle.net/" or "http://eu.battle.net/". If you see anything anything between that .net and the slash, it's a fraud.

- Don't click the link. If you're unsure, type the proper address into your browser and check your account to verify the claims. Odds are, you'll find it fake.

[Megg]

When I got hacked, it was one day after I installed an add-on that appeared to be from a reputable site. I refuse to use add-ons now. If you installed one, I would get rid of it, just to be safe.

[Amina516]

But I love add-ons...




*Ive never had an issue due to addons...knock on wood.

[Taboo]

When I got hacked, it was one day after I installed an add-on that appeared to be from a reputable site. I refuse to use add-ons now. If you installed one, I would get rid of it, just to be safe.

I use a lot of addons, but I haven't added a new one in months. They're all fine.

[technical.angel]

I only get my addons from Curse or wowinterface.

I got hacked, too. Thankfully, they just wanted to advertise gold sites. They didn't steal anything, just created a character on a server that I hadn't played on.

I got the email that I was temp banned for three hours. Changed my password. That happened about 3 times until I got wise and changed my email password, too. That's what I get for using the same password for both.

I still have NO idea how I got hacked. System was clean. My laptop was clean. Craziness.

[Megg]

The GM told me Curse is nothing but spyware and the number one cause of hacks behind phishing scams. He also made some noises about banning my son if he left it installed, as it is against the EULA. He could have been full of it, but I wasn't taking chances.

[lordlundar]

Two things:

1. I personally don't use the curse (or wowinterface) clients because of particular issues (there was a version of curse client that was spyware) but that has been long since resolved and the addons on their website ARE safe and require virus checks before they get approved.

2. The Addon clients are NOT part of the EULA or TOS, as they do not modify the game client in any way, shape or form. In that concept, the GM is full of it and I hope you got his/her, name, because that threat is a clear abuse of power that they should not have.

[Taboo]

Two things:

1. I personally don't use the curse (or wowinterface) clients because of particular issues (there was a version of curse client that was spyware) but that has been long since resolved and the addons on their website ARE safe and require virus checks before they get approved.

2. The Addon clients are NOT part of the EULA or TOS, as they do not modify the game client in any way, shape or form. In that concept, the GM is full of it and I hope you got his/her, name, because that threat is a clear abuse of power that they should not have.

This is true.

Also: it's best to leave the new versions of addons sitting for a week or so before you install. If there's actually a problem with them, given how many people use them, there WILL be an outcry over it.

[Megg]

1. I personally don't use the curse (or wowinterface) clients because of particular issues (there was a version of curse client that was spyware) but that has been long since resolved and the addons on their website ARE safe and require virus checks before they get approved.

I must bow to your superior knowledge, this was months ago, after all. I will just chalk it up to that particular GM dealing with one too many EWs. Better safe than sorry, is my motto, but it would be odd if they had NOT addressed this particular issue. WoW is their bread and butter, I would think.

I'm still scared of add-ons though. I don't need to know my gearscore that bad, especially since every 12 year old kid on my server has a better one than me.

[IvorTangrean]

Had something similar with my Guild Wars account. I got distracted with life and wound up not playing it for almost a year. During that time, apparently it got hit by some gold seller site or another, but they caught and locked the account. Took me about a week of failed attempts to contact them (mostly due to using the wrong links on their support pages and their different support email names in Europe vs America), but got my account back, as close to 'as I remembered it' as I could say, given the time away.

Changed my email AND password ASAP, once I was back in the game.

For a little added security, what you might do is take advantage of Yahoo or another webmail's generosity, and have multiple accounts:
#1 strictly for gaming with reputable companies (ie Blizzard, and in my case NCSoft)
#2 personal important stuff/friends and such
#3 'trash can' email, for forum lurking, trying out new sites etc. Open nothing sent to THAT email except confirmation emails from sites that send them.

Keep the names memorable for you, but vastly different in order to not mix them in your head, and never use one for another's purpose. If you keep #1 and #2 private and only given to trustworthy individuals/companies, you will still get the occasional spam from a random email recipient generator, but those accounts will not be sold to scammers as targets, and those emails will be so obvious you won't even have to worry about opening the wrong email and getting a virus/keylogger from it.

Also, I don't know if WoW has such a thing, but if you can use methods to minimize your typing you can stop a some issues before they start. It would be risky if I didnt watch what I visited, but my GW shortcut has my password command-lined, and the game is set to remember my email and character name itself. So when I start the game, there is no loggable typing, just straight to the character select screen.

You can also use gmail for this in another way bob@gmail.com and bob+wowspam@gmail.com will both go to bob@gmail.com but you can use filters to label any mail sent to bob+wowspam@gmail.com.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address#Address_tags

[Andara Bledin]

I still have NO idea how I got hacked. System was clean. My laptop was clean. Craziness.

Never underestimate the danger of brute force hacks.

I've never had an online account hacked that way, as my passwords have always been very strong, but I had someone clean out my bank and savings through an ATM by brute forcing the PIN. >_<

Use different cases, use numbers and letters, use symbols if they'll let you, and make it longer than shorter.

^-.-^