Blizzard Hacked
Blizzard Hacked
I posted this in the WoW forum, but it impacts more than just WoW ... and I know some of you won't venture out of offtopic, so here it is, from here: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/securityupdate.html
Important Security Update
Players and Friends,
Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.
At this time, we’ve found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised. Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed.
Some data was illegally accessed, including a list of email addresses for global Battle.net users, outside of China. For players on North American servers (which generally includes players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) the answer to the personal security question, and information relating to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators were also accessed. Based on what we currently know, this information alone is NOT enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts.
We also know that cryptographically scrambled versions of Battle.net passwords (not actual passwords) for players on North American servers were taken. We use Secure Remote Password protocol (SRP) to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it extremely difficult to extract the actual password, and also means that each password would have to be deciphered individually. As a precaution, however, we recommend that players on North American servers change their password. Please click this link to change your password. Moreover, if you have used the same or similar passwords for other purposes, you may want to consider changing those passwords as well.
In the coming days, we'll be prompting players on North American servers to change their secret questions and answers through an automated process. Additionally, we'll prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software. As a reminder, phishing emails will ask you for password or login information. Blizzard Entertainment emails will never ask for your password. We deeply regret the inconvenience to all of you and understand you may have questions. Please find additional information here.
We take the security of your personal information very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this has happened.
Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime
Battlenet accounts are constantly getting stolen or hacked. No supprise here.
Those accounts get hacked because of phishing scams and keyloggers, not because of holes in Blizzard's security. That's a user problem. This hack was into Blizzard directly, stealing email addresses (one-half of the account access) and encrypted passwords (the other half of account access). If you didn't have a token authenticator before, you should get one now. (As well as changing passwords and the email associated with a Battle.net account)
I have to give Blizzard props for being upfront and quickly informing account holders of the scope of the breach, being up-front and honest. More than Sony did, that's for sure. Also, unlike other large hacks recently, Blizzard didn't store the user passwords in a plain text file. Ahh, adhering to minimum standards is nice.
I stand corrected!
Well, so far it appears no credit card info was stolen, and if Blizzard followed other best practices, they shouldn't even have your CC data anymore anyway after that much time.
Now, because they keep your account data (ie, toons and inventory, etc) in perpetuity, in the event you succumb and return, and if you still use the email you registered with, you may get inundated with spam. Other than that, it doesn't appear to be an issue.
If they do announce that financial data was stolen, I'm sure someone around here will post pretty quickly. Then it's only a concern if the CC number is the same.