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Hacked, really?

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Amberreign
#0 - March 30, 2010, 3:24 p.m.
Blizzard Post
At 3:45am this morning an email was sent to my registered battlenet email stating my password has been changed. I was asleep at 3:45am, it was 7:30am before I was aware I HAD BEEN HACKED. They cleaned out our raiding guilds bank, of all mats and gold, they deleted my horde toons, moved my 80 to Area 52 and changed her name and they even created a 10 day trial account.

After a bit of investigating on WoWHeroes, I discovered about 100 level 80s with no gear at all, with ICC achievements, all located on Area 52. About a month ago the same thing happened to one of my guildies, EXACTLY, the same thing, at 3:45am someone changed his password, proceeded to clean out our guild bank, deleted his horde toons, and moved his main to area 52 and changed his name. Now when this happened to him, we all changed our email linked to battlenet, we all changed our passwords, we got authenticators, yadda, yadda, yadda.

About 2 weeks after his hacking, another guildie was online when he got booted off his account at 3:45am because someone had changed his password on his battlenet account, he was able to text our GM and she immediately booted him from the guild and he was able to change his password and boot the hacker before any damage was done.

Now we recently made a faction change as a guild, I find it odd that 3 of us would be targeted in the last 2 months since we made this change, with the same scenario at the same time of morning. You know I have played this game almost 3 years and until we did the faction change I didnt even know anyone that had been hacked. I dont buy gold, I dont respond to wsp's from folks I dont know, I dont visit bogus sites promising me free ingame stuff, I run regular virus scans, I use a spyware prevention program, I do the necessary things to protect my account, or so I thought. This is frustrating to say the least...
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Syndri
#23 - March 30, 2010, 5:41 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Your best bet, Amberreign, is to arm yourself with a suite of anti-malware software. Since individual programs frequently possess gaps in their "knowledge" (or database of recognized malware), by using more than one program of each software type, you can gain better coverage. Just don't run these programs simultaneously, as this can create complications with the software.

Also, you'll want to make sure that the WoW launcher is open and that gibberish is typed into both the "account name" and "password" fields when these programs are scanning. Some malware won't register unless these steps are taken.

Once these scans are complete—and please make sure that you scan all computers from which you may access WoW, its forums, or Account Management—you'll probably want to update your email address again. When selecting the username, try to avoid using any names that you've used online before. This includes screennames, character names, and other forum handles. Check for and complete any browser and other software updates (eg - Abobe Flash), too. :)



With all that said, you can find a ton of helpful security tips (including suggested anti-malware programs) and more here:



And for a step-by-step walkthrough of the account recovery process, check out this guide:





If you have any further questions, please let me know!