Battle.net makes hacking easier

There is very little difference in the systems in regards to them being compromised.

If you have a latent infection on your system, the merge may have grabbed enough information to ship off in a chunk. This is especially likely if you've had your account name saved and only needed to type in your password.

In any case, your system may not be as secure as you think it is, or your email could be compromised.

I'd highly recommend doing a deep scan for your own sake. That's not the sort of thing anyone wants on their system for far more reasons than just WoW.

This sticky may prove useful.

Computer Security Recommendations
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778038509&sid=1

I'd also recommend following you with a restoration investigation NOW. You may wish to take a break, but if you come back months later and want this done, we may not be able to do as much for you then as we can when this is fresh.

Account Compromise Info Center
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14318909866&sid=1

You may also want to look into getting an authenticator for your account. It's no substitute for good security habits, but it will keep anyone else out of your WoW account.

Blizzard Store
http://us.blizzard.com/store/browse.xml?f=c:6

Mobile Authenticator for Battle.net accounts
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=26109

Q u o t e:


Any company worth its salt (and worthy of your trust) will have no employees with access to your password. Blizzard employees have zero access to your password. Any password-related requests go through the automated password recovery system.

If you're truly an IT professional (and really, I had no reason to doubt you until now), then you wouldn't alow anyone to have access to anyone's personal information (that includes passwords) for ANY reason.

I believe what Wake is saying is that players should not use the same e-mail/password combination on third-party websites because those who run the site may use or distribute this information illegitimately. I do not believe Wake is saying that Blizzard employees are accessing and using customer passwords.

For the record, though, we do not have access to account passwords. All password retrieval and password change functions are automated.

Q u o t e:

Automated? Does that mean that a certain Blue "Bot" could find his way in? O_O :)

The only thing he can find his way into is trouble.