The latest buzz around the WoWsphere today is the proliferation of fake Armory sites. The gist of it is that scammers pay Google to get their sites listed as featured links when someone searches for the Armory. You assume it's legit because it's at the top, browse there, enter your account info and...poof. Account hacked.
It's also worth noting that the latest trick in the books is to link your account to an authenticator the moment it gets hacked, which exponentially increases the wait time to get it back. In the week or more you wait to have your account handed back to you, your toons are merrily running around under the control of someone with no good intentions causing havoc.
One of the single easiest ways to help prevent this (and almost any) kind of account theft is to get your own authenticator and link your account to it. Seriously. Do it now.
If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, it's absolutely free, takes about 2 minutes of your time, and you have zero excuse for not doing it. Just go to the App Store and search for "Battle.Net Mobile Authenticator".
There are also Mobile Authenticator versions for a wide range of phone/Blackberry/Palm products that you can download from the Blizzard store for $0.99. To see if your device is supported and to purchase it, go here: http://mobile.blizzard.com/shared/blizzard_download.php?cont=401&id=2183&title=Battle.net%20Mobile%20Authenticator&country=us&lang=en
Finally, if none of those options are available to you, you can buy an Authenticator Token for the cost of an average fast-food lunch ($6.50). Check it: http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100000822 (FREE SHIPPING ON THESE!!!)
Seriously, folks. I know most of us like to think we're very tech-savvy people and we're smart enough that this won't happen to us. But all it takes is two seconds of not paying attention and your account is gone. With so many people playing this game, account scammers are always looking for new and innovative ways to steal our stuff. There's no reason you shouldn't have one of these near your computer or in your pocket.
As quickly as it came, it was gone
5 years ago
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So true, the innovative ways they find to hack the accounts... And you're so right about it just taking 2 seconds to fail at computer expertize...
ReplyDeleteMost of my guild are people that studied in the areas of computer science or software engineering. But we've had several cases of account hacking.
One such case was that of our Guildmaster/Raidleader, working in a prestigious software company, getting hacked by using his brother's computer to log in the game when he was visiting for holidays.
The result was one month of account suspended, and guild bank locked (since the hacker completely emptied the about 4 tabs we had).
What that happened, about half of the guild ordered Authenticator Tokens xD
There were also some cases where people got their account hacked, and after about a couple of weeks of account suspended, they had lost their will to play WoW. By the time they were back, they just checked the account to see if all was well, and then they never really logged again.
Everyone should have those damned Authenticator Tokens, seriously. They're so cheap there's really no excuse not to.