Blizzard Entertainment Research

#0 - June 11, 2010, 3:50 a.m.

I received the following email at my battle.net account email address, with my real name used in the opening. It's remarkably similar to a real email from blizzard confirmed in this post : http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=13705401278&postId=137041381688&sid=1#0

However it looked nothing like this: http://media.wow-europe.com/email/survey/sat/wow_en.jpg

It appeared exactly as follows:

Q u o t e:
<Real Name>,

Our goal at Blizzard Entertainment is to make the most epic gaming experiences possible, so we want to get your feedback as a registered user of World of Warcraft. We invite you to participate in an online survey where your responses will help us determine which areas to focus our attention in the coming months. You must be 13 years of age or older to fill out the questionnaire. The entire survey is expected to take about 20 minutes to complete.

If you would like to participate, click on the following link:

<http://www.opinionshere.com/>

We value your opinions and look forward to hearing from you. To report any issues with this survey, please email [email protected]. Due to the large volume of emails we receive, we are unable to answer every message at this address, but all messages are read. If you need assistance or support from a Blizzard representative, please visit our Support site for additional contact options or help with our games at:

http://us.blizzard.com/support

Blizzard Entertainment Research

Is this real/safe?

Orlyia

#4 - June 11, 2010, 8:35 p.m.

We do have a company that does research for us.

Phishes sometimes also use REAL emails that are doctored to go elsewhere.

Some ways to tell if an email is legitimate or not, first look at who REALLY sent it. This is done by examining the internal routing header - NOT what the FROM address in the body says.

Also, links can be spoofed. If you mouseover a link - is it really going where it says it does AND does the link look legitimate (and not cleverly misspelled or disguised).

Finally content. Something like a survey is not going to ask you to sign-in. It may send you to a specific page setup for you, but it's not going to ask you to sign-in to take the survey.

Orlyia

#6 - June 11, 2010, 11:13 a.m.

Ahhh, sorry, I hadn't looked at the edit.

Yes, that one appears legit. Again, the steps I outlined above are good for any email from anyone....not just WoW, good tests for any phish.