Account Recovery

#0 - Nov. 10, 2010, 6:05 a.m.
Blizzard Post
I applied for an account recovery late Sunday night/Monday morning. Apparently my old PC had a keylogger on it, and Gold Farmers decided to re-activate my account a few days ago. My current computer is definitely secured so that is not a concern. My question is simple, and two fold:

I understand that I cannot be updated on the status of my recovery, however the E-mail I received stated it would be complete within 12 Working hours or 2 working days. Since it has gone past both of these points, is there a point in time I should contact Customer Service to make sure everything is still ok, or is it common for the recovery process to take longer than the anticipated 2 days? Also, I submitted my application via the online form posted in the sticky within this forum, and while I'm sure Customer Service Reps have seen more than their fair share of hackings, given the different nature of this account theft, would it be a good idea to submit the details to a representative to aid in the recovery?

Secondly, is there any way to find out if my account had any infractions during that period of time? Gold Farmers had free reign of my account for about 2 days before I realized what had happened. I understand that any infractions are cleared pending investigation but it would be nice to know what damage has been done to my reputation.

Ok... so I lied, I have a third question: How is the account recovery performed within World of Warcraft? I know other games save a character's state at different intervals and restoring an account is simply a matter of rolling the account back to the latest "Safe" point. Is this the method that Blizzard uses, or do they manually alter the character back to the state it was before restoration, or is it an entirely different method?

Thank you for your time and patience and I look forward to hearing from those that know more about the subject matter than I do!
#1 - Nov. 10, 2010, 6:38 a.m.
Blizzard Post
I do apologize for the delay, Shael.

You should actually be seeing this fairly soon.

While restorations are never guaranteed, our goal is to try to get a player as whole as possible from the condition they were in prior to a compromise. Time is a critical factor, but this was reported promptly so shouldn't come into play.

Did you find the source of this? That is vital. If they CAN get back in, they WILL be back. I'd recommend a full security sweep of your system, as well as making certain your email is secure. We recommend a unique password for your WoW account as well, don't share it with your email, other games, other programs, MSN, etc.

You may wish to look into adding an authenticator to your account as an additional layer of security. Just today, we've also introduced a version that works with your telephone.

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

Information on the new Dial-in Authenticator can be found here.

Battle.net Dial-in Authenticator Now Available
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1113829#blog

Battle.net Dial-in Authenticator FAQ
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/35806
#3 - Nov. 10, 2010, 7 a.m.
Blizzard Post
You could post it, then quickly edit it out. We can see edits. Also, URLs you post won't actually link here, only ours.

Thank you for being concerned about that threat - we do ask players not post potentially malicious URLs here.