Get an authenticator
Lus’ account got hacked last night.
We woke up this morning as my alarm went off for me to get ready for work and Lus turned on his computer and tried to log in. “It’s asking me for an authenticator code.”
“It shouldn’t, try again.”
It still asked for one. I was still waking up, so I said, “Well, either Blizzard activated mandatory authenticators overnight or you got hacked.”
It was cold, I know. I’m not a morning person. >.>
I think that it was partly ’cause I didn’t think it could’ve happened, but really, there’s no other reason for that window to be there unless there’s an authenticator attached to your account.
After I fully woke up and realized what happened, I recommended several things that I’ve gleaned from reading what other people have written about their accounts and/or their guildie’s accounts getting hacked. Call Blizzard. Try to log in on battle.net to change your password. Check your armory. Run a virus scan. CALL BLIZZARD. (I had to say that one several times, as he sat morosely looking at his naked gnome.)
They emptied our guild bank of anything of value (and our gold) of course, but what I thought was interesting was that his pally, that had the best gear (epics, anyway) still had about half his gear on, but the warlock, who was only 75 and leveling, had just about everything gone. His old BE rogue had all his gear gone except arena gear. Those were characters of note.
Unfortunately, I had to leave for work pretty much right then, so I could only issue instructions for him to stop pouting about his warlock and CALL and get the ball rolling. (I’m such an ass.)
I drove to work very concerned about the whole thing, whether or not he was going to get the ticket submitted, how long it would take them to respond, whether or not it would take months to get things back… selfishly, I even wondered whether or not this was going to scare him away from WoW.
I know, how horrible of me. Lus’ account is hacked, his characters stripped, his stuff gone… and I’m worried about losing a playing buddy. Classy, huh?
And really though, it just infuriated me that some scumbag mouthbreather was profiting from the armor, the gold, the mats, that Lus had earned, saved and had access to. And THEN some other scumbag mouthbreather is buying the gold and not feeling the slightest bit guilty for it.
Before I had to run out the door to work, I told him, “I’m very sorry that this happened. We’ll get it figured out.”
And since we’re an honest blog here, I’ll continue being honest – as I was driving to work, I also wondered why he didn’t apologize to me.
AND just to let you know that I’m not really an unfeeling horrible person, I didn’t EXPECT him to. I know that if I were in his position, I would be pretty devastated, seeing my characters stripped and used in that manner. I’d be worried about getting control of my account back. I think I would also feel guilty about what happened to the guild bank too. It’s kind of a “it’s the thought that counts” type thing, you know?
Part of that is also a “you should have had an authenticator” thing. Getting an authenticator is such an easy thing to do now. Part of why this is such a ridiculous thing to have happened is that Lus has an iPhone. It’s free for iPhone users! You just need to download the app and take a few more seconds logging in. I’ve had mine for months and months now, I’ve told Lus that he ought to get one, but he didn’t want to bother with it.
’cause everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, right?
That’s what I thought too, I’ll be honest with you. That’s why I didn’t get one the second that they came out. But I still got one – the very day before the corehound pups came out, actually. I tried to entice Lus into getting one with promises of a puppy that will dig holes in the ground and be fiery and cute and stuff. But nothing doing.
But who would actually come out and say “I’m sorry that I didn’t have the sense to get a free security device that would protect my account”? No one.
Before I even got this post past “naked gnome” he had someone on the phone from Blizz to unattach the bad authenticator from his account and to get the password changed so he could login and further assess the damage. The woman he talked to said that they would try to restore as much that was taken as possible and it might take about a week. We’re choosing to be optimistic and hope for it actually being about a week, since he really wants to play his warlock. The plan we have is to look at quests that will give useful rewards to replace what was taken, that way he has at least some gear, even if it’s not as nice as what he had on before – then he’ll be able to run dungeons to get his gear back.
Also luckily, one of the managers at work also plays WoW, so she understood why I was 10 minutes late to work and also why I wanted to go home. Third luckily, she had made a mistake in scheduling so we had too many people this morning but no one to close tonight, so I got sent home so that I could feel in the loop and as if I was helping, even though there was nothing I could do. There’s nothing worse than being away from someone that you care about when they’re upset, even if it’s something like this.
“Even if it’s something like this.”
That’s another thing I thought about on the way to work – how was I going to explain why I was late? There are two managers at work who play and a third who used to play but quit. (I was amazed that anyone at all played, but that’s neither here nor there.) I was hoping against hope that one of the managers who played was there so that I could explain that there was a crisis that needed dealt with and that I wasn’t some slacker who shows up late to work. If it wasn’t a manager who would understand WHY it was a problem, nay a mini crisis, that Lus’ account had been hacked, could I have explained it well enough? Probably not. It seems like unless you play the game, it’s just a waste of time and a stupid one at that. It’s not as if your real life possessions were stolen, your car broken into, your bank accounts emptied, right? But these characters and accounts are very valuable to us, even if they’re not something that are “real life” possessions, something tangible that anyone can relate to. We spend time on these characters and in this online world and of course we become attached to them. It takes time, determination, skill and effort to get characters where they are. Dedication. It’s perfectly plausible that we assign value to what we play in the game.
But, luckily I didn’t have to explain to a non-playing manager. So, I can be thankful that she was there and she understood what we were going through. She gave some helpful tips that, even if they turned out to be unnecessary to do, it felt like I could contribute advice to help Lus’ cause, and she was a soundingboard for me.
See, even I can find a silver lining in all this. It may be a little one, but I found it. So there.
Now, I guess the plan is wait and see how long it takes for Lus to get his stuff back. Get the Gnome warlock some quest gear. And FARM SOME HERBS AND ORE. That will probably be the majority of my playtime for the foreseeable future. Plans are helpful for rebuilding. We have one.
If you don’t have one already, GET AN AUTHENTICATOR. Whatever reason you have for not getting one will seem stupid and insignificant if you do happen to get hacked, so just save yourself the time, worry and trouble and get one now. Do it.
I didn’t get an authenticator until after I got hacked. I totally know the feeling of kicking yourself for weeks after. It did take about a week or so for Blizz to restore everything, but they did. They even restored things I didn’t know I’d lost on toons I didn’t even play anymore. The most painful part of the restoration was getting everything out of the mailbox and transporting it back to the bank bags.Well, that and the 1 hour+ on hold waiting for someone from Blizz to pick up the phone.But really, I got everything back, so I can’t complain.So sorry this happened. Good luck working through it.
It sucks but I’d take it as an opportunity to do something else. Wow will be there again in under a week, maybe go try something else either gaming or hobby wise? My ex was particularly stupid once and gave her details to a friend (who was just stupid all the time) with terrible internet habits. You see this guy shared shit with his friends and they were forever character hopping but basically one of them got keylogged. So then all of them got keylogged and while he was hacked he asked to play her account while he was waiting for a restore. She let him as she’d taken a brief break from playing (during which I’d geared her in pretty much all 3 specs) and sure enough I came home one day, logged on and found everything gone. Was awful and put me off the game for a while. But it was good in a way as when I did return I was ready to play properly again as opposed to getting bored and sitting around shattrath.
Got one :-)I hope things get sorted real soon for you.
It does take about a week; I had the same thing happen to me recently (everything gone, spam character created) except no authenticator was added in my case and no gbank was involved. I popped in a GM ticket, got a response in about 5 minutes saying it was forwarded to the correct department, and did some other shit for like 5-6 days. One day around noon they sent me 5 emails, one per character, listing the stuff they’d in-game mailed back to me, down to Relics of Ulduar. Got literally everything back.Of note, I could not get through by phone – there was no hold system, just "high volume of calls, unable to answer you" and a hangup.Other good advice Blizzard gave me, besides get an authenticator (yeahhh) – change your account email.In any case, it will probably not take long enough to get his stuff back that he’ll have time to regear, and he will almost certainly get it back.Good luck to you guys.
I haven’t got an authenticator but I do want one. The thing that is putting me off is that my account is second hand. My husband bought it for me and we didn’t realise that you aren’t supposed to do that. By the time we did it was too late, I’d already invested too much into my toons. Now I’m worried about getting an authenticator and maybe losing it and having to try to get it taken off the account. But I don’t know the security questions or the address and phone number the account was originally set up with. So I don’t want my account taken away because of a problem with the authenticator. But thinking about it now if I get hacked I would have the same problem when talking to Blizzard about it. Might be worth the risk of losing it to just get it.
Ouch, poor Lus. Glad to hear he is playing with you, and also that you have a Job to be late FOR at the moment! (Although tsk to you for yet AGAIN being totally MSN AWOL ALL THE TIME! ALL THE TIME!)Anywho, to all those who have been hacked; did you ever find out for sure (or at least have a fairly good inkling) as to how you were hacked? Logged in from a net cafe? Taken in by a WoW spoof site imitating the real thing? Char name + Acct name matching with a relatively easy to brute force password?
Just to echo others, I didn’t get an authenticator until I got hacked as well. I had a strong password, and I changed it periodically. I also scanned my PC for the nasties as well.
However, my password got lifted when I was doing some stuff on the WoW site and logged in from my work computer to do it. I found out after the fact that my home PC was much more secure than my work one. (And that’s from an employer who’s an IT company. Go figure.)
It did take about a week, but I got my stuff back.