Phishing Scam Targets World of Warcraft

An e-mail scam, attacking subscribers and users of the WoW (World of Warcraft) website, is reportedly trying to phish off members' login credentials. The site is a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game) from Blizzard Entertainment.

Particulars about the scam indicate that the scammers have used conventional tactics.

The phishing e-mail, which shows the sender's address as wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com, tells the recipient that his account has been sold. Since this act of selling account violates the company's terms and conditions, the account will be first suspended after which it will be deleted.

The e-mail then says that the user's account can be stopped from blocking if he replies with his name, username and password.

Remarking about the malicious campaign, security researchers stated that a loading suggestion in WoW was that no employee at Blizzard would ever request a subscriber to reveal his password. The sender's address might appear genuine, but it was a phishing attempt. If any recipient had any queries about the e-mail, then he must call Blizzard, the researchers suggested.

The World of Warcraft Internet gaming company officially says on its website that since recent phishing scams have been posing security risks to players' accounts, the company has made some guidelines with which players can safeguard themselves from probable theft of personal accounts. Moreover, these guidelines provide information about what measures of prevention WoW's users should adopt for protecting themselves and their computers, the site adds.

Besides, the gaming company urges users that in case they suspect a compromise of their account, they should contact the Game Security team of the company and notify it of the issue. To do this, they can access the online form, available from a link given on the authorized Internet site of the company.

The current phishing fraud against users of the WoW website follows an earlier one, which F-Secure reported, not even a full 30 days back, during the end-week of September 2009. According to security researchers, the basic greediness of those playing on gaming sites is what makes the players convenient preys for phishers.

» SPAMfighter News - 07-11-2009

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