Avoid getting hacked: Please Buy Authenticators

[Boyiee]

There are a lot of "I got hacked" threads popping up.

Please, go to battle.net, and buy your authenticators. You spend 15$ a month on this game, a one time fee of like 7$ isn't going to break you. You put hours and hours into this game, even if you are casual, is it not worth the 7$ to prevent this kind of thing from happening?

Things to note:

Yes, you can be hacked WITHOUT an authenticator, be it email schemes, keyloggers, websites, there are so many ways that no one is really perfectly safe. The recovery process is painstakingly long and quite annoying. It requires phone calls, emails, sometimes hour wait times on hold... Also getting your account FULLY restored to what it was takes time. Sometimes weeks.

Yes, you can be hacked WITH an authenticator, however the recovery process is quick and easy. Not to mention, unless your authenticator itself is hacked, lol, the person who hacks your account cannot log into your characters to transfer/delete them or touch your gold/gear.

That's right, if you have an authenticator, and you get hacked... the person can only change your email/passwords, which is a very very short phone call to reverse. They can not touch your characters.

Please, go out and buy your authenticators. Save yourself some time, and realistically, money in the long run. This is important. Don't sit there and think you are untouchable, or some super badass that's invincible. You are not Jack Bauer, you are not Chuck Norris, and you are not Vin Diesel. Pay your 7$ and be protected, avoid this nonsense, avoid wasting your time, and avoid wasting ours.

http://us.blizzard.com/store/search.xml?q=authenticator

Look, they are cool and red now. Mine is blue. Get.


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http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/a...-moves-147499/

Blue posters are fairly silent these days, at this point I can say that the upcoming minor content patch will not be deployed next week, but will be deployed on January 26th.

I also want to point out that there isn't a lot of Season 8 information to datamine, a lot of people sent me messages to ask for a preview of the season 8 gear but ... it's just not in the game files for the moment. This is also why the patch can't be deployed later than January 26th, the files needed to start the arena season are here, hopefully Blizzard will be nice enough to post a preview of the Season 8 armor sets.

Important - Armory Scams
The new version of the armory is now available on both US and EU armory and a lot of people lost their account because of scammers exploiting the popularity of the armory. The scam is fairly simple, people buy advertising on Google to display ads pointing to fake armory sites when you search for the real one on google.


NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER use google to access the official site or the armory, just type http://www.wowarmory.com / http://eu.wowarmory.com in your browser and bookmark it if you're lazy and don't want to type it every time.

The armory now requires you to login for a lot of the features introduced with the latest upgrade and you should make sure that you do not do anything stupid when you access it. I don't think you would use google to go to your Account Management page.

If you think you might have been scammed by one of these pages, change your password immediately. If you do not think that you're concerned by this post, change your password immediately because it's always a good idea anyway.

anyone falling prey to this must listen to the rest of the forums laughing at you

[Sonomaa]

stickied like a boss
Ill put an AVG rant up here too soon.

[Boyiee]

Good idea, I don't think everyone in this subforum reads tech anyway, not to mention tech has a sticky supporting AVG as a free alternative.

Edit:

Can someone edit the title please... I typed that up quick from work. It should say something more along the lines of:

Avoid getting hacked: Please Buy Authenticators

[Correction]

Helpful link to Tech thread on how to clean your computer of infections, malware and trojans, some of which may be responsible for you getting hacked. If you get hacked, before restoring your account this should be your first step:

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78291

Standard disclaimers of 'don't share your login info with anybody' and 'don't fall for phishing emails' apply.

how to tell a phishing email from real blizzard correspondence

[Korietsu]

Oh please for the love of god, watch what you click, use firefox/noscript/adblock/firewall. Especially if you're on a windows machine.

[solsirt]

Should also mention there is a blizzard authenticator app for the iphone that is free.

[Cephius]

Oh please for the love of god, watch what you click, use firefox/noscript/adblock/firewall. Especially if you're on a windows machine.

Not to make this into a Mac v. Windows debate, but I would argue that Mac users are just as susceptible to keyloggers and scams because of the Mac stereotype "Viruses can't hurt me, I'm on a Mac!" that everyone buys into. Just wanted to point that out, if you're negligent in your browsing habits, you're going to lose your account regardless of your operating system. Obviously, most viruses and trojans won't on Macs, but that doesn't mean Mac users should feel invincible.

"wow account hacked on mac" on google returns 849,000 results.

[SilverBreeze]

Mobile Authenticator is now avaliable for free for Android phones.

I downloaded and set it to my account last night in less than 2 minutes, there's no excuse not to have one if you have almost any kind of smart phone now.

[Thunderblaze]

Surprised no one has said to also download Firefox + Noscript, prevents majority of viruses/spyware. In my experience, majority of people's computer problems are related to internet explorer.

[Hunting]

Literally the best investment you can make.

[Reiterpalasch]

It really is an amazing investment. I mean it's only $6.50, that's more than worth it to protect your account.

I was hacked a few weeks ago after (what I assume is me using a fake armory whilst trying to link my account) and I only wish I had gotten this sooner =/ On the plus side, GMs there rock and I got everything mailed back to me in ~24hrs.