The Most Helpless Feeling in the World...

[nothingsacred]

two quick questions regarding this thread, One how is the whole gold stealing vendoring, sending and selling possible without some sort of negative consequence from blizzard? If someone logs into my account sells all my stuff gear etc they then need to send all that gold somewhere to be useful to them so can Blizzard not track each mail post to see where it goes? I mean even if they transfer the gold through 30 accounts and 50 characters is it not traceable? The accounts that receive the gold from the original account that was hacked would they not be immediately known? When you open an account you do need to give information and could these people not be prosecuted for theft? or some form of computer crime? I just don't understand how they get away with it considering how easy it is to follow and track information. I would think blizzard would know where it went and to who it went. Or is there something about this I do not understand.
My second question is about account security aside from the anti virus software that came with my computer which free ones are the best and most reliable? Also is anyone familiar with Trend Micro House Call, the website that scans your computer for viruses and negative/ harmful programs? Is it safe, reliable and good to use?
thanks.

[Carlinda]

NothingSacred: The whole thing with negative consequences for gold farmers/account hackers is pretty precarious for Blizzard. Technically, if you read your WoW agreement, we as players have no legal right to our characters. If a Blizz employee decided, "hey your gear is awful, /delete toon" he could and there is nothing you can do about it. Of course, that wouldn't really happen, I'm just illustrating a point here. So technically a hacked toon sending all of his gold to another toon isn't illegal because it's all Blizzard property.

I'm not exactly sure if the gold-selling is illegal, but it is against the rules of the game. However, it is a lot tougher to catch these transactions because they are hosted on websites outside of Blizzard control. A gold-seller will never send you a tell in game (I don't know this from personal experience, btw) but only through e-mail and AIM, which Blizz has no control over (and would you want them too?).

Also, as far as tracking all in-game transactions, Blizzard can to a point. However, a guildee told me last night that Blizz wipes their transaction records clean on a weekly basis (I think at the same time as the raid re-starts)... I'm not positive this is true so if anyone can verify this that would be great!

I've never heard of that Trend Micro House Call, so I dunno. Avast! Anti-virus, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Ad-aware are the three free ones that you'll hear the most about that are supposed to be really good when running all three (not just one or the other).

[BCShooter]

@ Carlinda

Might I suggest you and your Boyfriend start using Firefox with these Addons:

Addblock plus - It will automatically block banner adds on a webpage and you have the option of adding things to the block list.

Fasterfox - Adds performance and network tweaks to firefox so it runs faster.

IE Tab - So you can download Updates from Microsoft using Firefox.

WOT - Web of Trust is a nice addon that I just picked up a day or so ago that helps to give you a rating on links before you click them. You can even add your own rating to sites that have no rating

I would also suggest that you run the free version of AVG Antivirus. It has a nice built in firewall. Its not the best but it has caught several things for me in the past.

[RomaGoth]

I have been using firefox for about 6 months now and never use IE anymore. I will make sure to add those addons mentioned above however.

I also use AVG antivirus/anti spyware, works great. It found a trojan about 2 months ago, saving me some potential headaches.

I think a key to all of this is user awareness. I hardly ever go to websites via links I am unfamiliar with. I never use the Blizz forums. They are non-constructive in nature and nearly invite hackers by the very nature of the people that use them (no offense meant to anyone here who enjoys them btw). Be aware of what you are doing online, always keep your spyware/antivirus protection updated, make sure and defrag your hard drive at least monthly, and never download anything from untrustworthy sources. Oh yeah, and don't click on links or open emails from strangers.

I know most of us already know all of this, but we do tend to forget stuff when we get busy in life. The less we help hackers take our accounts over, the more fun we can have playing.

*** Information added 8 Minutes and 4 Seconds later... ***

Originally Posted by Carlinda

I'm not exactly sure if the gold-selling is illegal, but it is against the rules of the game. However, it is a lot tougher to catch these transactions because they are hosted on websites outside of Blizzard control. A gold-seller will never send you a tell in game (I don't know this from personal experience, btw) but only through e-mail and AIM, which Blizz has no control over (and would you want them too?).

First of all, sorry to hear about your bf's ordeal. Glad to hear he got his stuff back too.

As for the in-game tell's from gold sellers, that is actually not true. When I first started my toon on the Cho'gall server (about 2 months ago), I was bombarded with whispers from gold sellers and powerleveling services. It was unbelievable how many I received in one night, sometimes as many as 8 or 10 of them in a 4 hour period . Right click report and move on is all I could do. It is rather odd, I have had maybe 2 total whispers like this on my main server (Durotan). Ever. I have been playing on there for a year and a half now. I wonder if some realms have more of this going on than others.
Of course it depends upon population.

Hopefully your bf's account is safe, I suggest he do what a previous poster mentioned and clean his hard drive. Change passwords, etc...etc...

Tell him good luck from all of us.

[Absalom]

NoScript is also another good firefox plugin

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by Absalom

NoScript is also another good firefox plugin

What does that one do?

[Majestrix]

Less time then it probably took you to post... Thank you Google.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722

Maj

[Malrogh]

All you have to do is Password recover the account and the keylogger gets kicked off when the password changes. To do this you go World of Warcraft Community Site and click "I forgot my password" when trying to log onto the account. and if you know the person good enough(did this with a friends account) you can guess their question and password recover their account for them.

[wankerpants]

no script doesn't let a script on a website run unlesss you specifically allow it, that includes all java script, and flash media. makes for very secure browsing. simple to use in firefox. you would be surprised how many scripts run on websites. this forum has 2 running on the page i'm posing on right now.

[Sebek]

De-lurking to post:
Anyone wanting to be more secure should also consider going the "Drop my rights" route. Drop My Rights is a program that reduces your privileges (of course running an account that doesn't have admin privileges is a good idea, too).
http://http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1848 <--good article on it

Drop My Rights author's blog (with updates)

Hope this helps some.