New Phishing Email Campaign Target World of Warcraft Players

According to the security researchers at 'F-Secure', the Finnish antivirus firm, a new phishing email campaign is currently targeting the players of 'World of Warcraft', an online gaming website owned by Blizzard Entertainment.

These fake emails have their "From" column spoofed to appear as if they have initiated from some general address on the blizzard.com domain.

The email states that Blizzard is investigating about the latest theft of a large number of players missing account. It also tells the recipient that his World of Warcraft account can be one of those investigated. Further, it states that the players' passwords have been recently modified in order to restore the lost password and suggests the recipient to log on to restore the password verification.

The text in the email is followed by a link, which when clicked, redirects the user to an external website, as reported by F- secure.

The researchers highlights that an authentic verification process requires many other details than just simply supplying the password. Other details such as birth certificate, a valid ID such as Driving License, passport, state ID and in case of minors, parental consent is also required.

Meanwhile, to sound genuine and legal to the email recipient, the phishing email says that the recipient can call Blizzard from Monday to Friday between 8:00 to 20:00 Pacific Time. The email further states that the account's security is completely the responsibility of the account holder.

However, these phishing emails can be easily recognized by its content, which contains very noticeable spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, said F-Secure security researchers.

Explaining the motive behind targeting the World of Warcraft by the cybercriminals, the security researchers, who seized the recent phishing campaign, said that a World of Warcraft account was a golden opportunity for the phishers, dependent of the players' achievement. In game items were in demand and could be sold for real cash value, thus making World of Warcraft accounts a preferred phishing target, as informed by sofpedia on July 26, 2010.

Besides, F-Secure's verdict is also supported by a research released by Security firm Symantec earlier this year, which stated that World of Warcraft credentials could rack up from $35 to $28,000, depending on the point that how well the associated characters developed.

Related article: New Zealand Releases Code To Reduce Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 8/5/2010