WoW Account Hacked Question

Tiny Clanger

Tiny Clanger

Tiny Clanger

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Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
779
Wonder if anyone can help (or has had a similar experience to me) with the following....

I stopped playing WoW a good 18 months/2 years ago, but having started getting spoof mails about WoW/BattleNet password resets I thought I'd better check if there WAS a problem. So,a couple of days ago, not following any of the links in any of the e-mails I went to the Battlenet website and was able to link my WoW account to a Battlenet account - which rewarded me with some free time on WoW - so I thought I'd log in and see who was still around....

Last night I fired the PC up again and I found an e-mail from Blizzard handing me a 3 hour suspension for "disrupting in-game chat". I of course ran every anti-virus and malware program I have on this PC (AdAware,MSE,Malwarebytes) and found nothing. When the 3 hours was up I was able to log in, change password and see what damage had been done....which was none. All that had happened was that my main toon had left the guild - I still had all my kit, all my money and hadn't even moved location...:confused:

So....made copious apologies (although no one online had seen the "other" me) and logged off. Just to be extra careful, as I logged off I used my wifes PC to change my password on WoW.

This morning, I have another e-mail from Blizz with a permanent suspension until such time as I can prove the ownership of the account.:( The odd thing is that this ban was handed out within minutes of me logging off.

Now, I'm more than a bit concerned as to how this has happened. As I've said above I have several active AV programs (and Zonealarm firewall) and they still can find nothing. Also, I'm less than happy replying to an e-mail asking for all the details of my account, address, secret questions etc. I'm not even going to do this until such time as I find out how my account has become compromised. Finally - how could I manage to get re-banned within moments of logging off...

Just wondered if anyone else had had a similar experience or if you had any suggestions about what could be causing this.

Cheers

TC
 
I've been getting tons of spam too for WoW (stopped playing ages ago.) I've just been binning it, most of the emails from battle net point to some random WoW scammer site anyway.

Personally I couldnt' care less if my account has been hacked, I don't play it anymore, know I didn't share the password or even the username with anyone and know the CC they have on record has expired. Last thing I did when closing my account was the change the address details to garbage too.

Are you sure it was a legit site you got "free time" from, also are you completely sure the email from blizzard is legitimate, I've been getting the same sort of emails to those you mention about my characters being used to create abuse in game.
 
Well, when I went to the Battlenet site (directly mind - not via an e-mail link) and linked my WoW account to it - the account details on Battlenet then showed some additional time left on the subscription which I took to be a "tempting you to come back" offer.

As regards the ban e-mail - well, it "looks" legitimate and my account is banned if I try to log in - however, I'm not going to do anything with it until I get to the bottom of all this - what's the point in proving that it's my account only to get it banned again...

Thanks for all the advice so far :)

TC
 
I had a few mails from 'fake' blizzard addresses, the text in the link was correct but when i mouse over the link and checked the status bar it pointed to something totaly different.
 
The last e-mail from Blizzard asks for the following:

Account Name: The account name you are using to login.
CD Key: original WoW game CD-key (we cannot accept Expansion CD keys).
Your Secret Question and Answer.
Name: the full name that the account was created with.
Address: The address information given when the account was created.
Zip/Postal Code: The zip/postal code that was given when the account was created.

Actually - it doesn't ask for my password and the e-mail from them contains my account name already. But - I'm still not "biting" until I find out how my account has been compromised...
 
Ring them and find out yourself.

The tech support are pretty good, in fact a GM uses this forum now and then and maybe he can offer some advice.

Ask them to check the IP address to confirm it was not you, then have them reset your password. Make sure the email address you use has had its password change and get an authenticator because regardless of the comment above about them they help in protecting you.
 
Well - called technical support who tell me they do not deal with anything related to compromised accounts. (Cleverly however, tech support is charged at 25pence per minute and, despite the "average hold time" being announced as 3 minutes I waited 12 to speak to someone...).:rolleyes:

I've sent the Game Security team an e-mail - but in the meantime I'm still at a loss to understand how my account got hacked when I can't find any evidence of keyloggers or malware on the PC :confused:
 
Maybe there has been some confusion caused by the fact you used your wife's PC to change the password?

It might have automatically flagged as odd behaviour to log off playing and then the password immediately changes from a different PC (i'm assuming they can identify different PCs at the same IP as I know a fair few people who play at the same house :p)
 
Kenai - could be - the e-mail from Blizzard seemed very specific in terms of "repeated incidents of this account being reported of disrupting the in-game chat" but this perhaps is the "default" message...

Just have to wait and see - I think in the meantime I might do a clean install of Windows just in case there's anything lurking....
 
I never had a problem using different pc on the same wow accounts or different connections one was bt and the other ntl never had anything

now log in to the wow website it will tell u the last time u logged in see if it was at a time u can recall or if someone else did.

The email asking for the details looks the same to the one I got after my account got hack but if u don't feel safe sending to that address go to there website and get the email address

Also scan ur pc with a different virus malware scanner not just one try the free online scanner from thrend called house call if both say there's zero there then there is zero there.

If u still not sure what's going on email them if u havnt got the time to call them it take them a while to reply but it will help
 
Unfortunately - as the account is locked I can't see the last time I logged in.

I tried Trend Housecall and it can't find anything either - which just makes all of this more frustrating. I can't see any other way of the account being hacked (it's never been shared,no one else uses the PC) but somehow it's been compromised.....

I'll see what reply my e-mail to Blizz gets. In the meantime - thank you all once again for your help and advice (as usual!)

Cheers

TC
 
Email them also it might be someone that u might of upset ingame reporting abuse everytime they see ur online or something but I would not see blizz just taking someones word for it

when I had to prove it was my account it toke 2 months
 
Had something very similar happen to me a couple of months back - old account, reactivated, same 3 hour suspension, but I logged in to find that an authenticator had been put on my account.

I used the email route and got some help from the forums (a forum member works for blizz), submitted a photo of my driving license and some other bumf - altogether it took me about a week to get my account back. When I did... nothing was missing, just two new characters added to my account. No gold gone, no items missing, nothing.

I have no idea how I got compromised, I suspect there is something in reactivating dormant accounts that they can intercept as it happens a lot. Wiped all my comps and I now only log into wow from one comp which has my own authenticator loaded onto it. Its pointless trying to figure out the why, theres just no answer.

If you do keep playing, get an authenticator, mins on my phone - as has been shown they arent perfect but I would be surprised if they arent 99.9% perfect, take a few precautions it makes the hackers life a thousand times harder which makes it worth it.
 
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Interestingly they have nailed the source of the infection for the authenticator middle man attack to a fake addon site and a particular addon. I was putting in quite a lot of addons before my hack, may have been spoofed.
 
Sleepless said:
Interestingly they have nailed the source of the infection for the authenticator middle man attack to a fake addon site and a particular addon. I was putting in quite a lot of addons before my hack, may have been spoofed.
Click to expand...

That reminds me of one of my big gripes with WoW...

In an MMO, you should have a totally level playing field as far as possible. The amount of addons that could alter the gameplay in WoW made that impossible.

Not talking simple UI mods, but addons that bordered on automation/ trainers.
 
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