So, I got hacked...

[Smyelmdar]

Today while playing on a low level character on another realm (not my main realm) I got a mail saying that one of my accounts had been banned for selling gold.
I quickly logged onto my main realm, and yes, all my gold was gone on all my characters. Also all the guild gold was gone.
I have 4 accounts on the same battle.net, and all characters on them has lost all their gold.
Also my priest has a nearly empty bank. And I'm sure it's the same on my other characters.
I made a ticket, and it says 17 days wait time. Awesome. Last time I made a ticket, it said 6 days, but I got a response some hours later. So I'm hoping it will be the same this time.

Now I see why people quit the game after being hacked. It's no fun at all. But at least I know that they will restore my items. They did when my brother got hacked. But still, it's a pain.

They also changed my keybindings.. Argh..

And after this happned, I changed my password, battle.net email, and got an authenticator. Been wanting to get one of those for a while, but never got to it. But since you can now get it as an app for you phone, it's a lot easier, I think.

[Lisaara]

Authenticator is an absolute must. I cannot stress that enough. Also don't use IE. Thats just asking to get hacked.

[Smyelmdar]

Also don't use IE. Thats just asking to get hacked.

Haven't been using that crappy browser for years.

An update on things here:
Got almost all my items and money restored. I don't know if they're still working on it, but it seems like the gold that was taken from the guild bank hasn't been restored yet. I'll give them some time, and if nothing happens, I'll write another ticket.
Over 10k gold was taken from the bank, and it's nearly empty now..

[AdamSavage]

Authenticator is an absolute must. I cannot stress that enough. Also don't use IE. Thats just asking to get hacked.

This! The Irony of IE is you have to use it to download a better and more secure browser.

[Smyelmdar]

Actually, one of the worst tings about all of this is that they changed my keymappings. Now I have to change it all back. And I had mapped a lot of my keys.

[Lisaara]

Ouchies. D:

[Tankperson]

I got hacked once, luckily I had the day off from work and noticed. They only had access to my account for 2 hours once the Authenticators were for sale I got one about six months or so later and have never been happier about the choice it's the wroth the 7 bucks.

[Chrizesu]

The most important thing actually is a strong, uniquely used password that you can remember easily. It's actually more important then an authenticator. That being said, stuff happens, and I'm sorry your accounts got compromised.

[Anyia]

The most important thing actually is a strong, uniquely used password that you can remember easily.

While I don't disagree with the importance of a strong, unique password, my account got hacked a week or so after I'd put it on ice for the likely-to-be final time. That account was registered with a unique emai address, a unique password, and had been safe for the near seven years I'd been active. Yet right after I take suspend my account and state in the closing-down survey that I'm unlikely to be back, I get hacked.

The virus and malware scanners found nothing on my systems, neither my gaming rig nor my web browsing box. To me, it felt like either an inside job or a hack of Blizzard's database. I ended up writing up a long post-incident report for the Blizz anti-hack team; hopefully they fund it useful.

So no, allow me to respectfully disagree - get an authenticator!

Oh, and I just enabled the new "mobile alerts" feature too. My Blizzard account is now roughly three times more secure than my bank account...

PS. Guild bank restorations do take a while longer, and it all gets mailed to the GM... which is why GMs get really annoyed at having members hacked!

[Lisaara]

The most important thing actually is a strong, uniquely used password that you can remember easily.

While I don't disagree with the importance of a strong, unique password, my account got hacked a week or so after I'd put it on ice for the likely-to-be final time. That account was registered with a unique emai address, a unique password, and had been safe for the near seven years I'd been active. Yet right after I take suspend my account and state in the closing-down survey that I'm unlikely to be back, I get hacked.

The virus and malware scanners found nothing on my systems, neither my gaming rig nor my web browsing box. To me, it felt like either an inside job or a hack of Blizzard's database. I ended up writing up a long post-incident report for the Blizz anti-hack team; hopefully they fund it useful.

So no, allow me to respectfully disagree - get an authenticator!

Oh, and I just enabled the new "mobile alerts" feature too. My Blizzard account is now roughly three times more secure than my bank account...

PS. Guild bank restorations do take a while longer, and it all gets mailed to the GM... which is why GMs get really annoyed at having members hacked!

agreed. Strong Password means almost nothing. Password sniffer programs can get your password no matter what it is.

[Zuilu]

*Cough*

Just throwing this out there, but I've never been hacked without an authenticator, and I've been hacked twice with one.

Having one certainly helps against regular old keyloggers and what not, but you don't NEED to have one to be safe.

[Lisaara]

You're right. You don't need to have one but extra safety never hurt nobody. Zui, sounds like you got seriously unlucky or you must;ve had something super valuable for them to go through the trouble to deal with an authenticator.

[Smyelmdar]

Yeah, if a keylogger gets onto your computer, your password doesn't matter much. But still, it's not a bad thing having a strong password.
I got the mobile authenticator yesterday, and now I'm wondering why I didn't get it before.. And last night the gold that was taken from the guild bank was also restored. So it's all good now.
But I have to say for the first time of my 7 years of playing WoW, I lost the spirit there for a while, after all my keybindings were changed..

[Morven]

Actually, that's the worst part, isn't it? When I got hacked, a few years ago now, they went in and respecced her, rebound everything, changed the bars, everything. Why? I have no idea.

I didn't play Mindala for months, even though everything got restored. I went and levelled a new character.

[Galaxy]

my trick: keybind so intensely that no one but you can move the characters ;D

I did know a TON of ppl who got authenticators that got hacked...like 8 in one week ><; I think it was something to do with iphones and an exploit at that time

But, that's fixed now, as I understand it

[Karin]

I can tell you from experience an authenticator pretty much what does it. I was hacked a couple years ago, even with a long and strong password. After getting it back (fortunately, all that the hacker did was create level 1 toons on PvP servers with inhumane names; never touched my toons for some reason), I immediately bought an authenticator for my phone and haven't had a problem since then.

Veph also recommended after I got my account back to use gmail or maybe hotmail for the WoW account. I had used a Yahoo account for my account, which may have partially been a reason why I got hacked, seeing as Yahoo pretty much sucks. In fact, I got hacked on my Yahoo account about a year ago, which made me switch to hotmail for personal emails and to just use that Yahoo account for junk. I had to get rid of all my contacts and change my password because the hacker was sending porn links with viruses to them. My sister knew to just Google the link to see what it was.

Then there was a recommendation for Google Chrome.

[Tilo]

Zuilu
Just throwing this out there, but I've never been hacked without an authenticator, and I've been hacked twice with one.

how do you get compromised with, an authenticator? Some backdoor keystroke logging phish or what?

[Lisaara]

Zuilu
Just throwing this out there, but I've never been hacked without an authenticator, and I've been hacked twice with one.

how do you get compromised with, an authenticator? Some backdoor keystroke logging phish or what?

I'd say one determined hacker. Most won't touch you if you have one.

[Zuilu]

Zuilu
Just throwing this out there, but I've never been hacked without an authenticator, and I've been hacked twice with one.

how do you get compromised with, an authenticator? Some backdoor keystroke logging phish or what?

There was a large virus going around awhile back that targetted authenticators specifically. It was done via trojan on the computer that would intercept the authenticator code and...I'm going to butcher this, I'll just google it:

"The way that this was done is a trojan on the player's computer transmitted their account information and authenticator information to a remote server, while sending an incorrect authenticator number to WoW servers. The hackers then used the information and the authenticator information within the small window where it was still valid to log on to the player's account and take his items and gold."

It hit a lot of people, I'm not sure if there's been a solution to it on Blizzard's end or not.

So it wasn't just aimed at me, I didn't have anything valuable to be taken, it wasn't a personal attack, authenticators have viruses as well.

[Meggers]

That's pretty crazy! But yeah nothing can protect you from actually getting your PC infected...strong password...auth. etc

But authenticators are imo a good additional step. Just gotta be super duper careful about getting crap on your PC. @_@

I've not been hacked (in wow) thus far, and I got an auth pretty quickly.

BF didn't...got hacked. But now he has an auth and hasn't had issues. Two of our guildies got hacked twice before getting an authenticator and now have no issues.

So it goes both ways. x: