#2 - Oct. 22, 2010, 5:58 a.m.
Iscalio,
The cretins that steal accounts to strip or use are after one thing - money. Given we have 12 million players and none of those others games have nearly that many customers, WoW accounts are ripe targets simply because they have potentially more 'customers'. While you may not have dealt with them, they and their customers are indeed the root cause of compromises and folks like yourself become targets.
If you ever hear anyone say that buying gold or services doesn't hurt anyone, well - you now know firsthand this isn't a victimless crime and feel free to tell them so :)
Now, I'm not sure where you got the idea we didn't have a recovery system prior, this has been an issue we've sadly had to help our players deal with for years and we've always helped with recoveries anytime we can. Promptly reported compromises usually have good results.
As noted above, this system is superior to the old as you can essentially change your account name with an email change. That was never possible before.
What we have seen a lot of are cases where players use the same password for everything - other games, websites, email, etc. That can become a crime of opportunity if any of those other sources are breached, they WILL test that combination if they get their hands on it. That's just not good from a security point of view. Your passwords need to be unique to an application, and having an email for only WoW is also not a bad idea at all. Don't use it to correspond with friends, don't use it for websites, nothing but your WoW account.
We developed the authenticator over 2 years ago to help our players add an extra layer of security to their accounts and have continually done our best to help educate players on good security habits. Ultimately, security of an account is in a player's hands because there is only so much we can do and the security of your system, email and password is simply beyond our ability to impact directly. Those are all up to the player.
I know it's frustrating and you may not know where the breach occurred, but it's vital it's determined. If it still exists, they WILL be back.
This sticky may be useful.
Account Recovery Form
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=26859148968 You may also want to look into getting an authenticator for your account. It's no substitute for good security habits, but it will help keep them out of your WoW account.
Blizzard Store
http://us.blizzard.com/store/browse.xml?f=c:6 Mobile Authenticator
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=26109 Our end is secure, but there are a myriad ways that these thieves trick, steal, and scam players out of their information. Malware is one of the more common methods, but social engineering is right up there with it. Phishes are numerous, always ALWAYS look at the internal header of any email to determine the true sender.
I do wish you all the best, if there have been damages to the account, please do let us know right away.
