Blizzard shines the spotlight on account security

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-30-2010 @ 6:19PM

Daniel said...

I think one of the reasons many people discount account security is because most account compromise aren't genuine. I was in a raid last week with a person who was bitching up a storm about how slow Blizzard was to respond to his "hacked" account. As the details come forth it turned out that the account wasn't hacked by any ordinary definition of that term. He had lent his account name and password to his roomate so he could try out the game. His roommate then deleted two of his level 80 toons as a "joke".

I suspect that a very large percentage of Blizzard's time is wasted on these type of "hacks". Rather than admitting to the truth to Blizzard, they blame it on gold scammers and so on. No amount of account security reminders or authenticators is going to stop this type of "hacking".

1-30-2010 @ 6:43PM

Neirin said...

Even when it's not a situation like that, a large number of "hacks" are really just phishing/social engineering schemes. Still, it's nice to know that blizz is trying to make sure every ELECTRONIC security hole is filled - not much they can do about careless users.

1-30-2010 @ 7:47PM

Finnicks said...

If a "roommate" of mine deleted my 80s as a "joke" he would be finding a new place to live, after I reformatted his XBox 360/PS3 hard drives, and reformatted/erased any other form of memory he used for his own games, as a "joke".

Just reading that statement makes be twitch with rage.

And no "but I didn't know how much they were worth" or "I didn't know it took that much work to level up a toon" or "I didn't know you couldn't just undelete it!" excuses. Seriously, if you're so inconsiderate that you won't even take the time to find out what something is worth before you destroy it as a joke, you aren't fit to live in human society.

1-30-2010 @ 10:35PM

freeway8989 said...

@Finnicks:

Just my two cents:

I understand that it takes a LONG time to get a character to where he is in the game, but I think kicking out a roommate over deleting one is a little silly and a kind of antisocial.

I mean, it's not like he deleted anything real or unrecoverable. That's placing too much importance on WoW in your life.

1-31-2010 @ 9:08AM

Greg said...

Gotta disagree here. An authenticator would have prevented this exact thing.

It's on a keychain so it is intended to stay with the person who owns it at all times. Much like keys.

It's also available as an App for the iPhone or iPod touch. I might leave my keys on a counter for a moment or two while I'm around other people. But I pretty much never leave my $200 authenticator (iPod) unattended for any reason ever. Maybe while I speep, but only on account of unconsciousness.

If his roommate is getting into his things while he sleeps- time to talk to the RA- or landlord- or parents- or whoever.

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