Battle.net account hacking

aligator_am

Hi Guys,

Dunno if this has happened to anyone else here, but I got an email sent to me last Saturday at 4am telling me that my WoW account had been merged with with a battle.net account, needless to say I didn't initiate this. My toons are running round the place, my miner in particular, I can't even log into the blizz forums to post a message on it, I contacted blizz 7 days ago via their webform, haven't heard a peep back bar the instant auto response mail.

Am seriously annoyed with this turn of events, have been a paying customer for nearly 3 years now, missed 1 payment (cred card went arseways) and was cut off the next day, but when my account gets hijacked I hear nothing back in 7 days?????? not a happy bunny.

The truly worrying thing is that I know for a fact I had a fairly decent firewall up and bang up to date virus definitions, I run a virus scan about every 3 or 4 days. I initially thought that it was a keylogger but virus scans with multiple AV progs found nothing, when I did some research on this it looks like there are many people that have had the same experience, I'm wondering if the hacking is being done to blizz's systems as opposed to our PCs?

Lol, as one of my mates said jokingly, wouldn't be surprised if it's blizz hacking the accounts to scare people into buying these authenticators :P

PS. I should add, I checked my toons on the armory, they're all naked, lol so much for all my epics

EDIT: There doesn't appear to be a contact number for ROI, I can get through on the UK one but every time I've tried it's either said the wait time will be over an hour or else it says they are too busy, ring back later =/

Ivan

It's most likely a trojan on your PC.

Yes, blizzard are slow to respond. Expect a turn around of 2 weeks, minimum. (I hope you included all the required details in your first correspondance)
Yes, you will get everything you had, back. Most likely fully enchanted and without a scratch on it.
Yes, you will get to keep anything that the hacker left in your inventory.
Yes, you should have converted to a Battle.net account first. It's free and adds an extra layer of security to your account.
Yes, it sucks.

It happens to the best of us, some more than others. Trust me, I speak from experience

Mena

aligator_am wrote: »

Lol, as one of my mates said jokingly, wouldn't be surprised if it's blizz hacking the accounts to scare people into buying these authenticators :P

+1 To what Ivan posted, and secondly, just get the damn authenticator. It's not like it costs much at all, and you get a secure as you can currently get account. Not foolproof mind, but far better than without.

af666x

The authenticator is a free download for iphones and ipod touch now.

I also read that you can get it for your (normal) mobile phone too. It's not even a question of having to buy it - just download and link it to your account.

Splinter

the one for mobiles costs a few euro (think mine was 99c for my nokia n95)

elexes

the one for the mobiles dosnt work on all phones . but there working on it .

i got one of those key fob things . i just wonder how long the battery will last

WellyJ

I don't understand why people don't phone them.

This happened to my account a few weeks back and I got it back that same afternoon after calling them. It's worth the cost of the call to get it back quicker in my opinion.

I would never wait 2 weeks while some **** is farming on my main character.

aligator_am

I have tried calling them, using the UK number as I don't think there's one for ROI, and haven't been able to speak to a human as of yet. Each time it's either "we're too busy, phone back later" or else "your wait time will be over 30 minutes" which I've seen pass a few times now

DrinkFeckArse

If you have the answer to your secret question can you change your email on their website? That's what I did but it was before the whole Battle.net thing so I'm not sure what way it works now. More than likely the hacker has probably put an authenticator on your account also. If that happens I think your only option is to phone them.

I got hacked back in February (trojan) and Blizz were great. When I got the account back I just sent a ticket and it got answered in about 30 mins. I had all my deleted characters restored and my stuff in the mail within an hour of speaking to the GM. Plus I got the gold back that the hacker had farmed. :pac: I know it was used to advertise one of them fake websites because there was a couple of "Ffghfh" lvl 1 orcs made and before I got the account back I saw my warlock swimming around Hellfire naked and teleporting all over the place.

If you get everything sorted merge your account and get one of them little keychain authenticators or even the mobile one.

Magaa

I got hacked and i made 2500. Gold From it

The best way is if you have an friend that plays wow with you for him to open an ticket and say that your account has been hacked


Blizz responce time when you email is so bad i got my account hacked and then the next day i got it back because of the ticket then a week Later blizzard account managment contacted me.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Magaa wrote: »

I got hacked and i made 2500. Gold From it

The best way is if you have an friend that plays wow with you for him to open an ticket and say that your account has been hacked


Blizz responce time when you email is so bad i got my account hacked and then the next day i got it back because of the ticket then a week Later blizzard account managment contacted me.

How did you make gold from it? O.o

WellyJ

Magaa wrote: »

I got hacked and i made 2500. Gold From it

The best way is if you have an friend that plays wow with you for him to open an ticket and say that your account has been hacked


Blizz responce time when you email is so bad i got my account hacked and then the next day i got it back because of the ticket then a week Later blizzard account managment contacted me.

Having a friend make a ticket about your account being hacked will achieve absolutely nothing apart from wasting your friend's time. They will not enter into any discussion whatsoever about someone else's account.

Last time I was hacked I had my account back within 24 hours. Call them.

Magaa

WellyJ wrote: »

Having a friend make a ticket about your account being hacked will achieve absolutely nothing apart from wasting your friend's time. They will not enter into any discussion whatsoever about someone else's account.

Last time I was hacked I had my account back within 24 hours. Call them.

the so called "time wasting" worked.
your wrong mate

degrassinoel

Actually he's 99% right, the offchance of having a knowledgable and willingly helpful Gm speaking with your mate about your account and doing something about it is astronomical. They normally spam spiel macros at ye and tell ye to enjoy your stay in azeroth.. phoning up is expensive but better than waiting around for weeks for a reply via email, smart money would be best spent doing all three though, send yer mail, get yer mate to send a gm help request for ye, and ring them up.

btw: same rule applies to phone support as it does to ingame gm's -afaik they are one and the same. the call centre used to be in swords, i think its moved to cork now.

WellyJ

Magaa wrote: »

the so called "time wasting" worked.
your wrong mate

Magaa, I worked there. I know people who currently work there. I know their policies inside and out.

Degrassinoel, it's not about GMs being helpful. They follow their set of rules. Would they like to help your friend when you submit a ticket? Probably. Could it result in disciplinary action? Yes. There are privacy agreements in place, it is not at all professional to discuss a third party account with a player regardless of the circumstances.

EDIT: The "call centre" in Swords had no phone support, nor does the Cork centre now. If you call you have to call the UK numbers.

Magaa

WellyJ wrote: »

Magaa, I worked there. I know people who currently work there. I know their policies inside and out.

Degrassinoel, it's not about GMs being helpful. They follow their set of rules. Would they like to help your friend when you submit a ticket? Probably. Could it result in disciplinary action? Yes. There are privacy agreements in place, it is not at all professional to discuss a third party account with a player regardless of the circumstances.

EDIT: The "call centre" in Swords had no phone support, nor does the Cork centre now. If you call you have to call the UK numbers.

i belive you i must have had a nice GM there or sumtin.

are you an ingame GM?

Fano

I got hacked at the start of summer...It sucked took 2 weeks to get my account back but i got it and i got all my stuff back so blizz did a great job......Also recently my mate got hacked the day before arena season 6 ended and he was goin for rival i no its not much but now he's stuck with challenger and i cant help but say wat bad timing

degrassinoel

WellyJ wrote: »

Magaa, I worked there. I know people who currently work there. I know their policies inside and out.

Degrassinoel, it's not about GMs being helpful. They follow their set of rules. Would they like to help your friend when you submit a ticket? Probably. Could it result in disciplinary action? Yes. There are privacy agreements in place, it is not at all professional to discuss a third party account with a player regardless of the circumstances.

EDIT: The "call centre" in Swords had no phone support, nor does the Cork centre now. If you call you have to call the UK numbers.

I worked for them out in swords too for a few weeks when they had initially set up out there, we took calls. granted not very many, but we did take them.

There are GM's who are blatently uninterested in their jobs, which is (or was when i was there - few months before tbc was released) at least half of the people i worked with either had no idea how to talk to people or were so afraid of breaking a rule they just spammed their list of macros in gmtools.

However, you know as well as i do, everyone hates the GM that spams a macro, and it doesnt always fix the issue, there are always grey areas, especially when someones account has been hacked/frozen/suspended etc..

Dont get me wrong here Welly, i do sympathise with the GM's, i know it can be hard dealing with the average tit as a GM, and the suicide emo's -we got loads of those when the pvp system changed from ranking "omg i farmed battlegrounds for weeks to get high warlord etc..

But i've gone way askew here, the guts of the moral is that sending a mail to tech and asking your mate to send a ticket, AND calling them is a surefire way to get your account back up or be given a valid reason why it cant be etc, a lot quicker than waiting around for weeks for your mail to be replied to.

Anti

seems a **** load of people got hacked this weekend, the support forums are going insane as there seems to be a dns redirect hack on the webform page, interestign read.

Also happened to 4 people from my guild today. No virus, keyloggers or anything. I think this whole issue is on blizz' end:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10848084882&sid=1&pageNo=1

aligator_am

Anti wrote: »

seems a **** load of people got hacked this weekend, the support forums are going insane as there seems to be a dns redirect hack on the webform page, interestign read.

Also happened to 4 people from my guild today. No virus, keyloggers or anything. I think this whole issue is on blizz' end:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10848084882&sid=1&pageNo=1

As I mentioned in my original post, I ran scans of my PC with multiple AV progs and could find nothing, I do have to wonder if the hacking is being done on Blizz's end TBH?

Nehaxak

Not sure whether I mentioned this before but when I was hacked I was damn sure I had no keyloggers or viruses or anything like that on my computer. After a LOT of troubleshooting and investigations on my end I figured out that they had actually hacked me via sending crap spam emails which when opened in a browser (if I used webmail) by accident or via crappy thunderbird and it's email preview, had links within those emails which auto downloaded and auto ran a keylogger.
AVG (full version, not the even worse free version) anti virus did not stop this from happening either. I *HATE* that AV software, it is totally and utterly unsafe to depend upon for your AV needs, I don't care what anyone says or what biased reviews are out there, it's complete and utter rubbish !

They (the Chinese hackers, and yes they were from China as I tracked them back) then also accessed my email account via it's webmail function and tried to change my password not long after I changed it myself after noticing the hack. So they actually had hacked my email account also, or more to the point, keylogged me enough to get my login to my email as I normally accessed it mostly via webmail. I think only for the fact I was quick enough to merge my accounts myself to battle.net and use an authenticator (which happened to luckily enough be released that morning on the iphone) they would've otherwise merged my account to whatever battle.net account they wanted it on.

So anyway, first things first, change your bloody email account password after first making sure, absolutely sure, that you have no keylogger/virus.

Also, use a decent and safe email programme like Outlook.

Turn off all auto preview email crap in your webmail so you don't auto view a spam email by mistake.

Get a decent anti virus programme ! g2play.net have great deals on Avira and Kaspersky but I'd recommend Nod32 myself personally.

If you can, use http://www.opendns.com/ as it adds another level of security and shouldn't effect your gaming at all.

Get one of the blizzard authenticators and merge your account to battle.net - honestly, it provides a huge amount of security and it's worth the few euro it costs for the authenticator (or free for the iphone).

Myself, I reckon the vast majority of those hacked recently were caught via the same thing the bastards caught me with - that could also evolve into now changing your DNS and/or hosts file,I dunno but really, turn off that preview email crap if you do use any sort of webmail, change your password and get a decent email client on your own computer if you can.

The opendns thing is good too, I have it set on my router and set up an account on opendns (it's free) to block crap I don't want, including all of China.

TheDoc

I am unable to log into my account ........ starting to get worried.

aligator_am

TheDoc wrote: »

I am unable to log into my account ........ starting to get worried.

Have you already got your WoW account bound to a Battle.net account? (done by yourself I mean) or is it saying that the password you're entering is incorrect?

Either way, hope you get it sorted soon.