WoW is TRASH!!

[Sarayana]

I had a lot to say about all the conspiracy theories regarding these forums and Blizzard, but Tahlian and several others have covered it. Suffice to say that hacking is on the rise because of one thing: profitability. There's money to be made, so people do it. Blizzard isn't planning, condoning, or allowing it. First of all, that makes no sense, business-wise. Secondly, it's illegal for them not to notify their clients if they had security issues, considering that our computers often contain much more sensitive information than our WoW login.

Bottom line is that hacking is done by bottomfeeding scum that aren't too good to take advantage of people that work hard for their items - whether in-game or not. Blaming anyone else is really pointless.

[Adam-Savage]

they maybe idiots when they allow gold sellers and hackers abuse their games but we all know they are trying their best for us

I spotted a Gold Farmer last night and he was still there today farming the Fire Eternals by the Son of Hodir. I didn't bother reporting him because they don't do anything about it.

[Tygamoon]

There was a lot of great advice here. Might I suggest someone well versed in this sort of thing create a FAQ and walk-through for the slightly less internet savvy surfer for a sticky?

I'm sure they do something about it. It just takes time. The GMs are probably very busy with the millions of other customers in the game.

[Adam-Savage]

There was a lot of great advice here. Might I suggest someone well versed in this sort of thing create a FAQ and walk-through for the slightly less internet savvy surfer for a sticky?

I'm sure they do something about it. It just takes time. The GMs are probably very busy with the millions of other customers in the game.

No, They don't. I reported this gold farmer and half a year later I still see the same toon in the same area doing the same thing over and over again.

[Tygamoon]

Ah well in my own experience I have run across a few under-the-ground miners in Sholazar. I first reported them and describing what I saw. Then I logged over to the other faction to let the guild leaders and officers know that a member had been hacked. It was cleared up within a week. I was friends with a few of their guild members so I asked about how they were doing.

Anther person (who will remain unnamed) that I used to be guilded with would talk about using bots to farm while he slept. He had been reported and investigated but it could not be proven at that time that he used such programs. He did all his bragging over vent so there was no SS. This was a while ago so the methods used to investigate may have improved. I'm not sure so /shrug

[Mr. Perfect]

Oh, and I completely forgot one of the biggies. Though most people have grown accustomed to doing things the opposite way...

Don't run as an administrator account! Have two accounts on your PC, one account with administrator privileges and a password, and one that's a standard user account. Use the standard account for all that you do, and when it's time to install something a UAC box will pop up(oh, don't turn off UAC either) that alerts you that something is trying to install itself on your system. If it's something you wanted to install, just type in the administrator password. If it's something you weren't expecting, hit cancel and all is well. As an added bonus, other people who borrow your PC can't goof it up, since they don't know the password to the account that can do installations. Drive-by-infections inherit their installation rights from the account they try running on, so if you're logged in as an administrator any virus that comes your way will also have administrator rights to your PC. Not a good thing. Running as a user account ensures that the virus will also have user privileges, and won't be able to access the password protected administrator account.

That's basically what IT departments world wide do, though they don't let the users have the admin password.

[Slickrock]

Well, considering that I just got hacked too... and all those spam-whispers that you get now... sigh...

Thanks to some hacker, I'm on a 2-week WoW vacation, with a holiday coming up..

[Lazuly]

This is the price of RMT growing as a business in the West coupled with WoW's obscene popularity. The hackers are getting more aggressive about stealing people's accounts. I mean, what other MMORPG has to resort to Authenticator technology to try to protect it's players? It's really mind-boggling. But I give props to Blizzard for trying what they can to help people keep their accounts safe the best they can. Since a lot of the theft goes on in ways they can't prevent (like keyloggers being put into people's PCs from other websites) there's really not much else they can do.

[Nick]

Wanted to throw in my one-cents worth. A computer-geeky friend of mine recommended I use a Firefox add-on called "Web of Trust" since I tend to go off on very random internet safaris.
It has kept me out of a lot of sites that looked innocuous enough, but apparently were quite dangerous.

Just downloaded it, gonna run it around and see how well it does.

And by "run it around" I mean "go about my daily business everyday and see what surprises me".

[Chrizesu]

I still find it odd that I've never been hacked, but did hack a few forums once. *cough*

[Sonata]

Hmm this is really getting odd...and making me feel worried alot, I have suspected myself of getting a hack since I sometimes am disconnected from the game without a reason and everything working okay, okay that problem was solved.

But I am with everyone else, keep the things updated, run your scans atleast once a week it makes you feel happy everytime there is nothing.

I still find it odd that I've never been hacked, but did hack a few forums once. *cough*

Gentlemen we have a spy in our mitts.

[Saturo]

*Coughs, and then hides Sonata's account behind her back*

Oh, and Mr. Perfect... I once ran everything on my computer as root for a month. That's like THE superuser. I mean, it's possible to erase systemfiles while the computer is still active and using them.
I don't recommend anyone to do that.

[Sonata]

*change password liek crazy* Now ya can't hack me you stalker gnome.

[Saturo]

*change password liek crazy* Now ya can't hack me you stalker gnome.

Aww...

[Rarako]

I've been playing since a few months before BC hit and never had a problem until about two months ago. My email account was hacked so that another email could have all of Blizzard's emails forwarded to them. When they hacked my WoW account whenever I tried to change my password it would forward it to that email, it took me resetting my password for my email, disabling the parent email account they set up, filing for a lost password with battle.net, and then setting up a new email for just my battle.net account to get control back. Odd thing was I never used my primary (old battle.net) email on any WoW related web sight save Petopia, and after a thorough scan of my Mac no bots, keylogers, hacks, or malware was to be found.

What I'm wondering with all these hacking cases and gold farmer spams on the site as of late, is if some gold farming company has taken an interest in our little forum and is going after our accounts. Think about it, they would be able to find out the world servers (US, Eu) a person plays on, most of the time what servers they normally play on, what characters they have, class, professions, etc. They could easily go "Mortimer the 80 hunter on the Footburn server has access to the guild bank Wipes on Trash, is a miner/engineer, and saving up for epic flying for his druid alt. We should hit that like bugged Wolpertinger on duel day!" Might sound paranoid posting (hell I think I sound paranoid) but just thought I'd through out a theory. *shrug*

[cowmuflage]

Dude to ANYONE here who thinks Blizz are "working with the hackers" shut your goddman mouths now and go away please. Why would blizz work with them? They don't get anything out of it infact there one if not the best MMO companys out there that care about there users and help them to get there stuff back a lto of other ones do not at all or make you pay (I think someone else here said that). God why do people allways blame the company when they get hacked when its proberly the players fault not the company.

[Sharilar]

It's definitely just gone up in general. In the past few months I've had 3 guildies hacked, but I hadn't had ANYONE I know hacked until this year.

Also, in terms of authenticators, I suggest paying the $7 or whatever instead of getting the phone one, for one simple reason. If you ever take your phone in for servicing, the people who service it can copy your program, or get the "seed" number used to generate your codes. It may not be that likely, but better safe than sorry.

[Ryai]

they maybe idiots when they allow gold sellers and hackers abuse their games but we all know they are trying their best for us

I spotted a Gold Farmer last night and he was still there today farming the Fire Eternals by the Son of Hodir. I didn't bother reporting him because they don't do anything about it.

Sorry but I report every damn Hacker, farmer, level bot or idiot FLYING AROUND at lv 58 with NO MOUNT I see. Why? Because I may get frustrated that it takes 24+ hours for my tickets to be resolved, but they get resolved and the bots get taken care of. Because every time I report one of these people, in under a week, I never see them again.


Sorry but if you take the Eh CBA route, and others take the eh CBA route, wtf are the GM's supposed to do?

[Vespias]

Happy to say that I've been playing WoW since launch and have never been hacked. Not sure if it has anything to do with it, but my log on info is unique in that I only use that particular email addy and password for only WoW. I don't buy gold or fall for those ridiculous phishing emails that warn me of doom if I don't go make sure my account is working properly. I get an average of 10 of those a week and just forward them all to Hacks@Blizzard.com. I also now have the authenticator just as an added precaution. I think the best way to avoid hacks is to just be aware of what you're doing. On a side note, about a month ago a guildie who hasn't been on for about 6 months pops on and he's not answering any of the greetings or my whispers. Next thing I know he's in Sholazar Basin, which isn't strange except for the fact that his toon is lvl 70. I zip out there and track him and there he is naked as a jaybird. LOL, thankfully a GM answered my frantic call for help quickly and put the account in suspention. Still waiting for that guy to legitimately contact me to find out what happened. As an added precaution, once you have failed to log in for a month you get booted back to recruit with no access to the GBank at all.

[Vespias]

Bottom line is that hacking is done by bottomfeeding scum that aren't too good to take advantage of people that work hard for their items - whether in-game or not. Blaming anyone else is really pointless.

Sorry but I disagree with that...there IS blame to be shared and it goes to the lazy ass scumbags who BUY the gold. No demand, no product and until this practice stops, hacking will continue.