Proof account hacked w/o keylogger

#0 - Aug. 21, 2010, 5:41 p.m.
Blizzard Post
I now have proof that my daughter's account was hacked w/o a keylogger on any of my systems. About three months ago, my account was hacked while I was out of town on business. I bought authenticators for all three accounts in our house. I run Symantec end point security on all my computers and have a linux firewall. I scanned all our computers w/ AV and multiple Malware scanners. I even watched the netstat output to external sites while I logged into WOW. I found nothing. Still I accepted that there might have been something on our end.

My daughter's account has been inactive for over a year and we've never logged into that account via the game or any blizzard websites while the account was inactive. This morning my son was on his account and noticed one of her character online in his friend's list. I immediately changed the password and added an authenticator to the account and logged in to log the hacker out. They didn't delete or steal anything. They just took her lvl 70 hunter and dropped the professions and leveled up mining and herb to 450. She was in icecrown when I logged in.

This should be enough proof to everyone that this account was hacked w/o any form of a keylogger on our systems. They are either brute-force hacking into these accounts or someone has sold account info to the farmers.
#79 - Aug. 21, 2010, 8:47 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
I have to say that I've also noticed that the account hacking has become epidemic since the forced battle.net merge. People were concerned with security before the forced merge, but we kept receiving replies saying that there was nothing to be worried about. Apparently they were wrong.

Q u o t e:
The hacking has grown like a wildfire since the change to the battle.net system. It's absolutely dumb to use the person's email address as the login id.

Provided you take the necessary measures to prevent an account compromise to begin with, you really don’t have anything to worry about. While compromises appear to be on the rise, the amount of compromises tends to fluctuate. Keep in mind that hackers and becoming more and more creative with their compromise tactics as well.

Compromises were occurring even before Battle.net. While Battle.net does require an email address for login purposes, you are not required to use your personal email address. Many players created an email address specifically for Battle.net use. Also bear in mind, email addresses (i.e. the account name) can be changed at anytime via Account Management, whereas before the merger World of Warcraft account names were set in stone and unable to be changed.

It is all speculation as to how the account was compromised, regardless of the last time his daughter played on it. It may have been a keylogger or it may not have. Let’s stick with providing Maleadorn with positive feedback and comments and not theorizations.
#92 - Aug. 21, 2010, 10:32 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
Time to lock this one up. OP appears to have abandoned it, and who could blame him.

Unfortunately, I do believe you may be right, Teufelgott. : (