Blizzard warns of account theft in World of Warcraft

Blizzard's Battle.net Authenticator
Source: Blizzard A new new web page launched by Activision Blizzard, the company behind the popular World of Warcraft online role-playing game (RPG), informs players about the dangers of various types of account theft. The page highlights potential security holes and advises players on how to protect themselves against phishing emails and trojans. To improve security, Blizzard offers an Authenticator which generates a new key every time a user logs in. The Authenticator is available as a free iPhone and iPod touch app, costing £0.50 as a Java application for mobile phones and £6.29 as a key ring version.

The vendor particularly warns of the consequences and dangers of levelling services and gold sellers. Blizzard say they have received numerous complaints from customers who, having used these services, a few weeks later, had their characters hijacked and all their virtual stash stolen. Such services are disallowed under Blizzard's terms and conditions and can potentially lead to an account being deleted. The vendor also reported cases of credit card misuse. Furthermore, Blizzard said that using gold farmers fuels World of Warcraft inflation and causes spam and farming bots to increase in the online world, compromising the gaming experience of all players.

(crve)