- Related Stories
-
'World of Warcraft' bans raise players' ire
March 22, 2007 -
Outsourcing your 'Warcraft' skills
February 6, 2007 -
'Warcraft': A world in transition
February 2, 2007 -
eBay bans auctions of virtual goods
January 29, 2007
If you're a World of Warcraft player using Windows, beware.
For months, hackers--most likely in China and Russia, according to security watchers--have been surreptitiously installing keylogging software on WoW players' Windows computers, hijacking their accounts and selling off their often valuable in-game assets.
And the problem doesn't show any signs of going away.
The gangs perpetrating the hacking are "incredibly active, and it's a good exploit," said Roger Thompson, CTO of security software developer Exploit Prevention Labs. "It's probably a conservative estimate to say that there's tens of thousands of victims."
The exploit works when unsuspecting WoW players visit any number of Web sites infected by the hackers with keylogging software. When the players visit the sites--which are often unrelated to WoW, but that players frequent, Thompson said--the software is quietly installed on their computers, allowing the hackers to spy on keystrokes and steal players' WoW passwords.
While the software could easily be used to hack into players' accounts in almost any online game, there's no evidence the victims are anybody but players of WoW.
"It's only a matter of what they want to do," Thompson said of the hackers' choice to attack only WoW accounts. "The guys working out how to do it are WoW players. We're pretty sure we know who (most of them) are: a couple of Chinese college students, and it turns out they're interested in WoW."
Thompson said he suspects that a Russian gang may also be involved.
Many of the victims, no doubt, have experiences similar to that of Dag Friedman, a 37-year-old math teacher from Sacramento, Calif.
Last month, Friedman wrote on the WorldofWar.net--an unofficial WoW community site--that he had recently discovered that one of his WoW accounts had been permanently banned by the game's publisher, Blizzard Entertainment. According to an e-mail he received, the banning was punishment for "account sharing," a violation of the game's terms of service in which players give others their passwords and access to their accounts.
Friedman wrote that he had tried to get Blizzard to explain what happened, but had gotten no initial response. Weeks later, however, he was contacted by Blizzard, which told him it had reinstated his account and restored his lost items.
Contacted by CNET News.com, Friedman said he had since had another WoW account hacked, and that he was disturbed that someone had broken into his computer.
Worse, in the middle of an instant-message conversation with CNET News.com, Friedman reported that he had just discovered that yet another of his accounts had been broken into and all its contents pilfered.
For its part, Blizzard said it's addressing the problem by informing players that they should ensure their computers are safe against malware.
An "important means of protecting your account information is keeping your system up-to-date," Blizzard wrote in an April 6 forum posting on the official WoW Web site. "For instance, installing the latest Windows security patch is a good way to avoid exploits designed to steal your login and password details."
But some players would be the first to admit they do a poor job of updating their security software. As a result, they are perfect targets for hackers.
Friedman, in fact, acknowledged that he is lax about such things.
"This really comes down to a security issue," Friedman said, "and obviously I am not taking the necessary steps to make my home computer secure enough."
Friedman also said he appreciates that Blizzard is acting quickly to shut down accounts after they have been compromised, since it alerts players to problems with their computers.
"I think that it is good that they are so quick to ban the account," he said. "I would not have been aware of this situation if they had not been so quick to act. Who knows what other types of information could have been accessed?"
There are more than 8 million WoW players, so even if tens of thousands are finding their accounts compromised, that's still a very small percentage of the total.
But for the hackers, the rewards can be substantial. That's because many players hoard gold, weapons, spells or armor worth a lot of money on the open market. Even though Blizzard doesn't officially allow players to buy or sell those goods, there is a thriving market for them (and that's in spite of the fact that eBay, one of the most popular venues for such transactions, recently decided to ban them).
"People are willing to buy on the black market," said Javier Santoyo, senior manager of Symantec's security response team. "If players themselves were not willing to go outside the games to improve their characters, then there wouldn't be such a need."
But for players like Adam Satterfield, a 28-year-old IT consultant from Atlanta, the downside to having a WoW account hacked and subsequently banned goes beyond losing in-game assets.
Several months ago, Satterfield said, his computer was infected by keylogging software. His account was hacked, his assets were stolen and the account was banned.
"It's unfortunate to lose your in-game stuff," Satterfield said, "but what was really important was to play and hang out with my friends."
Once his account was deactivated, Satterfield said he had to go back and forth with Blizzard to prove his account truly belonged to him. All told, the process took nearly a month, and Blizzard ended up charging him for that month of service anyway.
Blizzard spokesperson Shon Damron said the company recommends using the Blizzard Launcher, a console that delivers WoW news and at the same time runs a scan of players' computers. If it finds something amiss, it alerts the player. Damron said Blizzard also recommends players use virus-scanning software.
Thompson agreed, and said the best thing a WoW user on a Windows machine can do is use the very latest Windows patches from Microsoft.
"The moral of the story is that if you patch, you're safe," Thompson said. "If not, be afraid, be very afraid. Complacency is the enemy."
See more CNET content tagged:
World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment, keylogging, hacker, exploit
:P
</a>
Sponsored Links
Buy or Sell WOW Accounts
Visit Web Site Buy or Sell Your World of Warcraft Accounts from Any US/Euro Servers
www.gamepal.com
World of Warcraft gold
Visit Web Site Cheap Price & Fast Delivery! 24/7 Live Support, Purchase Now!
www.power4game.com
it is Blizzard's fault because people who choose to run Windows
choose not to ensure their system is adequately protected. Are
you seriously suggesting that Blizzard take responsibility for an
insecure OS that they did not have anything to do with creating?
Since these compromises are happening on the users system
and not Blizzards servers it is not Blizzard's fault. If a users
system gets hacked because they failed to properly protect it
then it is their own fault. If you get hacked on your own system
don't come looking for sympathy.
Why did Blizzard change it to where passwords are nolonger case senctive? Why don't they send an auto reply email when your account has been updated/changed not only to let you know of the activty, but also to help better track hacks?
* Buy or Sell WOW Accounts
Visit Web Site Buy or Sell Your World of Warcraft Accounts from Any US/Euro Servers
www.////removeditrbecausethatsjunk////.com
* World of Warcraft gold
Visit Web Site Cheap Price & Fast Delivery! 24/7 Live Support, Purchase Now!
www.////removeditrbecausethatsjunk////.com
* Get 1 Million Exp An Hour
Visit Web Site In World of Warcraft! Money Back Guarantee - Only $21.99
www.////removeditrbecausethatsjunk////.com
(About)
so otherwords these websites make money off taking advantage of someone and stealing their account. These are the SAME PEOPLE! Cnet! Loook !! Messed up!
How about just safe computing ? works great, got a clean system, no keyloggers, viri, trojans, ect.
Keeping a clean system is not that hard.
come out of their dungeons more often than they
do now and gasp for some air, we wouldn't see
un-newsworthy items like this on News.com.
Instead, we'd see things like, "Batboy Seen in
Pennsylvania - Scares Amish Farmers Into
Reality."
all around the world. Beats the heck out of the boob-tube.
Nobody said that the games industry has any obligation to protect the stupid, the cheat, or the wannabes from their own greed.
/P
For example, even with keystroke capturing software it would do
no good since secure id generates a new number every minute. If
that number is part of your password, it changes every minute and
it doesnt matter if they have a snapshot.
E-Trade does this. So why not Blizzard?
More information on how to secure your account:
http://www.blizzards-next-generation-mmo.com/battle-net/account-security/
I disagree that this is not about platform specific, I do agree however that people need to do a better job performing updates on their Wintel PC?s with the latest protection software.
However that is never going to be enough, M$ operating systems are just vulnerable, period, that will never change until M$ does a lot better at programming an OS overall.
Personally I use a PC to play WoW, however as a tech for both PC and Mac I get paid to keep systems up to date, and maintained.
Word of caution; don?t go to the websites that offer to Power level you, or to buy virtual Gold. Sites like these and others offer scams, just clean up and update your system, WinXP SP2 with all the patches.
Or buy or use a Mac, yes? I had mine compromised as well, Blizz took a few days but I got most of my stuff back, now I don?t go to sites about Wow that I don?t know if they are reputable or not. I also went back and did a lookup of the domain and who owned it, it was a company out of the US. Owned by a company out of China.
The most secure OS on the planet cannot possibly save a user from installing something (or giving away user info).
The best any OS can do to slow down malware is to minimize the damage (OSX and Linux does this quite admirably, and Vista is finally attempting to do it, though results there are as yet unclear).
No OS can stop a user from entering personal info onto a website.
I'm glad I stick w/ the FPS games where the servers are free to pop in and use... seems the pay-for-play games are more trouble than they're worth by now.
/P
Also, I have several doubts to the effectiveness of "keeping your computer updated" as a be-all-end-all solution. I wonder how many WOW players down have a sufficiently legitimate license from Microsoft (e.g. copied from a friend, etc.) to get adequate updates to keep their computer secure. Additionally, of the people who are legitimate with Microsoft, I wonder how many haven't the slightest clue on how to either tell what the update status of their computer is or even go about updating it. And finally, of the people that don't know, I wonder how many care to even bother finding out.
Quite frankly, if I wasn't a very computer savvy person who just liked playing a game on the computer every now and then, I'd find all the security concerns behind it way too opaque for the common gamer and just want a refund.
Three cheers for lousy customer support. </sarcasm>
I think that is very very good going considering some people have been waiting weeks to get their items and their accounts returned.
Seems things are actually picking up for the consumer in my humble opinion, or else Blizz are upping the ante against this.
However, it could also prove costly to the company. In order to successfully implement second degree security, you have to actually distribute whatever piece of equipment provides for it (like the secure ID, for example), and also re-distribute it when problems with it occur.
Not sure how costly the broken accounts as a whole are to the company themselves. It could be just as easily resolved with better customer service; I mean at the end of the day, it's just a game and not our life savings, right?
2) Since when did market dominance equate to superior quality. If you want to compare Macs and PCs then I suggest you leave market share out of it. Having been in the tech industry for a long time I could cite many cases where inferior technology won for various reasons. Am I saying the Mac is better? No. I try to stay out of religious wars. I'm just saying your argument is faulty.
Thank God they did NOT get my WoW stuff!
For people that got hacked, I have no sympathy for you! You got hacked because it was your own damn fault! You're probably the same people who's keep those nigerians in business! If you lost your life-savings (real or virtual) because you got hacked, oh well, you would've blown it in other ways eventually -- like buying a house on adjustable rate mortgage, or giving it to that guy that will sell you Cloud (or Volcano) Insurance!!!
get subjected to an unsolicited breakin attempt. I am talking
about things like buffer overflow vulnerabilities in applications
that connect to the network - passwords are irrelevant to these
kinds of attacks. If you buy a new computer, it will by definition
NOT BE PATCHED until you go out and get the latest
patches...which you get...over the network...before you are
actually patched. You will suffer more than one attempt to
break in before you are up to date. Most people are lucky
enough to make it through this first phase, but the attacks keep
coming for the entire time you are plugged into the network.
Of course it's easier to break into the computer of somebody
that doesn't know what they are doing. On the other hand,
there's a reason why plenty of smart people have just given up
on securing a WindowsXP computer and run something else
instead. When everybody runs the exact same OS, just being
unlucky enough to be targeted with a very recent vulnerability is
enough to doom you. (Microsoft's "we are so popular" defense
has some truth to it, but that doesnt change the probability of
getting broken into. This probability is astoundingly high if you
are a WindowsXP user with an always on connection.)
You can suffer a remote code execution from just about any
content that your browser reads, including images and sounds.
You can suffer a remote code execution by merely plugging your
computer into the internet and waiting a few minutes while your
OS patches download.
Running as a user with lower privileges limits the damage; But
WindowsXP makes this inconvenient enough that a lot of people
who have tried to stick to the discipline eventually turn admin
privileges back on so that they can actually use their computer.
A nicely done remote code execution will make itself
undetectable, therefore once you have suffered a single attack
you are completely finished. You HAVE to re-image from a clean
backup, but how do you know that the current messed up config
wasn't made possible by the configuration you backed up?
Smart users minimize their probability of getting broken into
within the limits of what they can control. But dont you think for
a minute that you'd have to be an idiot to get a keylogger on
your system.
"Unintended installs" for Windows is becoming a science.
Unintended installs exploit bugs in application code, so the only
way to make it impossible for "smart users" to be invulnerable is
to run operating systems that only allow for the installation of
"bug free code". Any attempt at enforcing such a standard
would die at the hands of companies gaming the code review
system for competitive advantage, which would drive users off
to a less secure system, which puts us back where we started.
I can't (though most likely won't) afford a Mac. In lieu of that, I'm just glad I have the common sense to avoid these things.
One running Win2K, the other XP. Both up and running and connected to the 'net for years (The Win2K unit just turned 5). Constantly surfing, playing games, using various networking tools. These machines are always on and connected to the 'net, so what's the damage?
Viruses: 0
Spyware: 0
Other Malware: 0
Guess I didn't need a Mac after all.
Three and a half weeks went by until I received an official response to my request for account restoration. In the meantime I submitted posts on the WoW forums asking for an update. Every post was deleted in mere seconds of it's posting.
Finally Blizzard told me that they could not verify my loss and that the new content from the release of The Burning Crusade would provide me with better opportunities to advance my lvl 60 character. They also told me that any further conversation would best be handled online, however the final post I made on the forum was deleted like all the other posts I had made.
Just from my observations from my experience with all this, I've played WoW for over a year. I have never had a problem until after I first logged into the WoW forums. Maybe it's from this unsecured side of the site where your info gets taken. You enter the forums with your account name and password and it's unsecured. All I know is I had no keyloggers on my computer, I had no virus' on my computer, I had no spyware on my computer. I run 3 firewall programs that monitor the programs on my computer and anything trying to access the internet or anything trying to access me. I also run 2 anti-virus/anti-spyware programs all of which are up to date and I still had my account hacked. I have not formatted or restored my computer since I was hacked and amazingly (knock on wood) it hasn't happened again.
People like to agree with Blizz and say that "we" deserved getting hacked. That "we" brought it upon ourselves. All I really want to know is when did "we" buy into all the Blizzard BS? I just hope that those who post replies saying that people deserve getting hacked, get hacked themselves so I can be one of the 1st to laugh at them.
To the person who said only stupid people get hacked. First of all, that was extremely rude of you to say, and second of all, people are hacked all the time because people do not want to pay their own bills. Here is an example:
A person I know had his computer taken in to the shop to have SP2 put in. His computer was configured so that he didn't have to type in his password, other than when he dialed up. In this instance the person who usually worked on his computer was on vacation, so another person worked on his computer, so when he got it back, he logged on in his usual way. When he went to change his password (I convinced him it was a good idea to change your PC's password about every 63-71 days) he found that the person who worked on his computer had NOT put the password in, and immediately he ran a full scan, particularly his System Volume Information, as that is what dialers usually hit, but he ran the complete scan and found 2 dialers. However luckily he had Grisoft AVG, which gave him the company and numerical number of the person who had dropped the dialers in his computer. He lost a few thousand dll's, exe's, sfx's etc., but he also had the satisfaction that the person who did it is not only going to spend jail time, but is going to have to pay monitarily for dropping those dialers in. People who have a tendency, like yourself, to think others stupid, tend to fall into their own holes, it's basically called foot in mouth disease. I've worked on computers since they first came out in the 70's and mainframes were the size of about 2 warehouses, and if there is a will, there is a way.
It will happen to you at some point. I sure hope not, however as a Veteran, when all the social security numbers were stolen, I was terrified as mine was one of the ones in there. Luckily they got it back, so you see sometimes it doesn't have anything to do with you at all. Someone elses carelessness may cause the problem.
Sincerely,
N. Doree-Sheckler
- Buy cheap wow gold, world of warcraft gold all servers.
- by cherrycky August 12, 2007 9:20 AM PDT
- Looking to buy WOW GOLD, Items or Accounts? ... ( wow gold for sale) Land mounts can be purchased by players once they reach level ...http://www.vicsale.com
- Reply to this comment
-
-
- Buy WoW Gold, Sell WoW Gold - World of Warcraft Gold Information - Vicsale
- by cherrycky August 12, 2007 9:21 AM PDT
- Buy and Sell, World of Warcraft, Everquest, Everquest 2, Eve Online, Dofus, Maple Story, Silk Road ... to Learn how to Buy WoW Gold or Sell WoW Gold ,http://www.vicsale.com
- View reply
Processing -
Showing 1 of 2 pages (129 Comments)