Hardly a week seems to go by recently without news of some kind of hack attempt, or data leak, from various sources, and the recent hit on Gawker Media websites has sparked Blizzard to issue password reset notifications to some World of Warcraft players.
A recent attack on the Gawker Media group – which includes websites such as Gawker, Gizmodo, Kotaku and Lifehacker – compromised their database, and sensitive information, including staff conversations and private passwords as well as those of users registered to comment on the various sites, was released in a torrent file on the infamous site ThePirateBay.
In order to reduce the impact of this compromise, Blizzard has issued password-reset e-mails for several Battle.net accounts, in the hope of preventing any unauthorised account access.
"As some of you know, several Gawker Media websites, including Gawker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, Jezebel, io9, Jalopnik, and Deadspin, were recently compromised. To help minimize the effects of this compromise namely for players who might be using the same login information for their Gawker Media accounts and their Battle.net accounts we recently issued password-reset emails for several accounts. If you’ve received an email from Blizzard Entertainment requesting a password reset as a result of the Gawker Media compromise, please click on the link included in the email’s body to choose a new password. You can also log in to Battle.net Account Management to reset your password on your own ( https://us.battle.net/account/management ).
If you used your Battle.net email address to sign up with any of the Gawker Media sites listed above (for example, to post comments), we also recommend that you update your Battle.net email address as soon as possible via Account Management. If you are unable to complete this step or the password reset and believe your account might be compromised, please contact our customer support staff by using the Account Recovery Form ( https://us.battle.net/account/suppor…-recovery.html ) and be sure to check out our Account Security Awareness guide ( http://us.battle.net/en/security/ ) for additional security tips and suggestions."
Blizzard have always been keen to secure account integrity, and have often warned players not to click on any links in e-mails regarding World of Warcraft/Battle.net accounts, so it is surprising to see them asking players to do just this.
While many players may be able to check the authenticity of the e-mail, lesser tech-savvy folk may not be too sure and pass it off as a phishing scam, but as you can see from the Blizzard post above this is a genuine e-mail.
In the coming days, or weeks, I would advise extra caution as there is always a chance that account phishers may well jump on this as a chance to gain access to more accounts, and send out similar looking e-mails to the official Blizzard notification.
Rather than clicking on any links within the e-mails, no matter how genuine they look, go directly to the Battle.net account management website yourself and update your account there, just to be on the safe side.
As always, it is recommended that your gaming account e-mail address is not used for other websites, and if it is to ensure your passwords never match and are changed regularly. For that extra bit of security, you can invest in a Battle.net authenticator, available for around £6 from the Blizzard store, or free for many smart phones.
Stay safe, folks – you don’t want to lose any gaming time over the holiday break!
Tags: Blizzard, Cataclysm, starcraft 2, Starcraft II, StarCraft II Hearts of the Swarm, StarCraft II Wings of Liberty, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft Cataclysm, Wrath of the Lich King
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