How secure are your online game accounts?

Hey guys. I was surfing through my email SPAM inbox (I marked blizz as spam at one time) and got some laughs over these emails I got regarding my "World of Warcraft account"

Wanted to share this with ya.


Here they are in chronological order. ()

I'm not removing the links, because they are from blizzard.

"@blizzard.com" is Blizzard. These are real.


Why am I laughing this off you ask? I Don't play WoW, havent played it in 3 years, and those 3 years back it was a TRIAL ACCOUNT made in mid-2007 that I owned for less than one week and never played the game again, never logged on it again.

The account has never been logged on by me for at least 3 solid years. And at that, it would have been on Mac OS X, the (theoretically) "malware-less OS"

No one stole my password.

Just some info I wanted to share. Got some good laughs out of it. Would have been a different story if they were from NCSoft.

a number of people are getting these. go to the original email and look at the ACTUAL url for the links, they lead to phishing sites. guru doesn't copy html imbedded in plaintext so the disguised links just show up on guru being real. the address is also spoofed. try to reply to one, it says the email doesn't exist. it's spoofed. that's also the reason why they're getting to your spam inbox, all spoofed emails go to spam cause email software programmers just aren't as dumb as spammers. well, most of them.

it's just spam and as long as you dont go clicking the links and filling out all the information and entering it, not a damn thing will happen to your accounts.

I don't normally check my spam folder, I just delete them. But New Years Eve I found amusement at reading to my wife all the random crap I got. From making my body parts bigger or smaller, the 20 or so internet lotteries I won and numerous emails from Blizzard. My situation was the same as yours, 1 week trial, that I played about an hour on.
I have started getting them for Aion now as well, and I've never even played it (although I am a little paranoid now since that's NCSoft as well). I am really thankful that they made it so that you need to know the current password to reset passwords on the NCSoft account site.
I read a post (can't remember where) regarding the clicking of links. It's not a good idea for certain, but I wouldn't even open the emails for a laugh. There are ways to embed things in emails that require nothing more than opening to 'get' you.
Thanks for the laugh though. Funny how many people are getting these nowadays.

I'm surprised that people actually have a "spam" folder. I just set my spam filter to send things to the "deleted" or "trash" folder, which is emptied when I exit. Why save them, they are just using up hard drive space.
(I know there is the obscure possibility that something you actually want ends up in the spam folder, but how often does that ever happen (and you recover it). )

It's also scary to think that the OP considers them to be legitimate e-mails - no wonder people get hacked.

I'm not that stupid. I'll admit I didn't consider what Gift3d said..changing the real URL code, but I don't care about WoW as I don't play it, plus if it's in my spam, all I'm going to do is read it and laugh just like the other emails about various drugs and body part enlarger emails, lol.

Trust me, If I were to recieve an email from NC and it looked 100% legit, the first thing I'm doing is logging into my account from the REAL site the manual way or logging onto GW in the first place to confirm that my account really is still there.

I also got 2 of those emails since guru was compromised (I do not have a WOW account)
Here is some of the header info from both emails. If they had actually come from Blizzard the info would be the same for both - they actually came from two different sources (as expected).


This is the link they give to enter my account info and fix it ( I added a space and removed a dot to break the link):
http://www worldofwarcraft. com

The properties of the shortcut shows it will actually take you here:
http://www wor1dcfwarcraft. com/

Notice that the "L" has become a "1" and the "O" turned into a "c"

I'm pretty sure your emails are phishing attempts too. If you have any doubt, contact blizzard through the normal support methods, not through any links you get in an unsolicted email.

i've been told that i have a huge head (more noticable with a side-view).

o.o

i also never use the same password/id combo on any site i'm registered at...quite a few, yes indeed, many, yes. oh, and i do not write these down ever cuz then they would not remain secret.

a logical association there perhaps???

perhaps.

-.-

Phishing emails are so funny right...

That's not necessarily the smartest thing to do, either. If you were to have picked up a keylogger, what better way to speed delivery of your account information?
I would suggest the very first step upon receipt of one of these emails would be to run your virus scan (up-to-date, one would hope), especially before entering information specifically being "phished" for.

what they dont want your social security number? or your credit card number?

lol

How safe.... also depends on who is holding your account information and what information it contains.
I get these phishing emails asking for WoW account info even though I have never played the game let alone set up an account lol and I have also had phishing emails for Aion account information. but my concern is this.... the email address that they are sending the phishing emails to, is the only address I have used solely for one of my guildwars accounts that is tied with Ncsoft. The email address has never been used to receive or send anything else and was only set up to create the GW account. So how secure is anyone's online gaming, is down to who holds the account information....Both game player and the gaming servers

I've had 9 of those emails, 6 say ive been banned.
It's funny cause for the month i did play, i was on an illegitimate server, and i actually questioned - could blizzard ban that account.
Haha