Hackers emails are very elaborate...

#0 - June 3, 2010, 6:09 p.m.

Its no wonder so many people have gotten their accounts hacked. The emails we receive in the mail are so convincing and a ley person would find it hard to not click on the links and try to "save their accounts." Thank god I have an authenticator.

I got these in the span of a few days: (The links all link to a bogus link and blizzard should attempt to sue them (<< link removed >>)

Btw, how the hell did they get my email address? I don't follow weird links and my other 2 email addresses never received these emails. Is blizzard compromised in some way?

Hello, nta0p2gv4vynevakzfgrtzlpewsitcwqeioeucgqgn

This is an automated notification regarding your World of Warcraft account. Your account Contact & Shipping Addresses was recently modified through the Account Management website.

If you made this change to your account, please disregard this automatic notification.

*** If you did NOT make any changes to your account, we recommend you login to Account Management at the following link to review your account settings:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account

If you cannot sign into Account Management using the link above, or if unauthorized changes continue to happen, please contact Blizzard Billing & Account Services for advanced assistance.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter, and your continued interest in Blizzard Games.

Regards,

Account Support Team
Blizzard Entertainment

NEXT:

Greetings,

An investigation of your World of Warcraft account has found strong evidence that the account in question is being sold or traded. As you may not be aware of,this conflicts with Blizzard's EULA under section 4 Paragraph B which can be found here:
WoW -> Legal -> End User License Agreement
and Section 8 of the Terms of Use found here:
WoW -> Legal -> Terms of Use
The investigation will be continued by Blizzard administration to determine the action to be taken against your account. If your account is found violating the EULA and Terms of Use, your account can, and will be suspended/closed/or terminated.

In order to keep this from occurring, you should immediately verify that you are the original owner of the account.

To verify your identity please visit the following webpage: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/security/support

Blizzard staff will verify your account information submitted in two days, please do not modify your account information during this time . It will not affect your game uptime.If you are unable to successfully verify your password . using the automated system, please contact Billing & Account Services at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (1-800-592-5499) Mon-Fri, 8am-8pm Pacific Time or at billing@blizzard.com. Account security is solely the responsibility of the account holder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives typically must lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.

Regards,

Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowindex/

NEXT:

Dear customer,

This is an automated notification sent from our account security system. You logined your account successfully at 4:27 on May 28th form the DELETED IP* range, but our system shows the 125.94.112.* IP range exists a large number of hackers. As too many customer complaints, the 125.19.169.* IP range has been blacklisted. We are concerned about whether your account has been stolen. In order to guarantee the legitimacy of your account, we need you check your account status here as soon as possible. If you have any questions, please visit :

<< link removed >>

Account security is solely the responsibility of the accountholder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives will typically lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.

Regards,

Blizzard account system
Blizzard Entertainmentc

#3 - June 3, 2010, 6:47 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Its no wonder so many people have gotten their accounts hacked. The emails we receive in the mail are so convincing and a ley person would find it hard to not click on the links and try to "save their accounts." Thank god I have an authenticator.

Phishing emails are unfortunately a very common trend, not just within the online gaming community, but the internet as a whole. The best defense against these emails is education, so I would encourage you to read over this article and help spread the word, as well:

How to Identify Fake or Phishing Emails

http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=25133

We've also published information about phishing emails on our Battle.net Account Security Awareness page here: http://us.battle.net/security/types.html#phishing

Paste these links in your guild's MOTD, on your guild forums, wherever. They're relatively easy reads and may prevent a fellow player's account from being compromised.

Also! Be sure to forward those emails you received onto hacks@blizzard.com. :D

Q u o t e:
Btw, how the hell did they get my email address? I don't follow weird links and my other 2 email addresses never received these emails. Is blizzard compromised in some way?

My advice is to create a new email address for your Battle.net account, Muher, and make sure the username and password for it are unique. This means you will want to avoid using a username and/or password that you already use or have used online before (e.g. WoW character names, forum handles, instant message screennames, etc — don't use these). Once this address is registered to your Battle.net account, do not use it for any other service.

While the majority of phishing emails are sent out randomly and en masse, by keeping your registered address private, you can reduce your chances of receiving them. Does this mean you won't receive another phishing email ever again? Not necessarily. But it should reduce the number greatly. :)

(But to answer your question: No, neither Blizzard Entertainment nor Battle.net has been compromised.)