Hacked off

Our Guild is struggling with having accounts hacked, and this is apparently not uncommon at the moment. Several gamers and blogs are reporting the same thing, what seems to be an upswing in people losing their accounts since the holidays. In the past two weeks alone, our Guild has seen two WoW accounts hacked (one Guildie lost everything of value, AND they hit the Guild bank) and someone got their NC soft Aion account hit. I have read that Curse is to blame for introducing phishing ware into their recent updater, and then another couple of sites that pointed to people downloading things like the Curse updater, but not from the official sites, having used a mirror. I don't know what the answer is, but it is obvious the problem is increasing.

Most of our Guild uses an authenticator for WoW, either the keyfob version or the iPhone app. This seems to help, as the folks that were recently hacked did not have this layer of protection. I think that BattleNet has something to do with these hacking woes, as a lot of this increased account theft in WoW seems to have grown after they forced players to merge accounts.

So what do we do if it's a game with no extra precautions, like WAR? or the City? I guess all we can do is change passwords regularly and make them as complex as possible (i.e., not one from this list, or several others like it you can find on the intrawebz). Report any abnormalities in your accounts as soon as you notice them. The WoW buddy actually got disconnected twice while in an instance, and then when he tried to log in a third time he was unable, and whoever hacked him added an authenticator to the account... (this is also the new WoW practice for hackers)

Also, be honest with yourself about how it could have occurred. Does your password suck? Did you give your password to anyone? Did you download anything recently from a source you don't trust 100%? Check your gaming system as well, thoroughly. Our Guild member whose Aion account was hit discovered malware on his system that the normal protections did not detect, and could not remove. He did a full wipe to fix the issue.

I think this really is a miserable denomination of person that does this. These are games, meant for people to enjoy and relax with. Hacking causes stress, loss, and frustration to people, all for ten bucks worth of digital gold. To quote Professor Farnsworth to his hippie alternate universe counterpart, "GET A JOB!"

-Real Big Kitty