I am confused. I got email today from "Blizzard" about Account Authenticator. I don't know if that is hacking attempt, probably it is. Anyway that email is very well written, almost perfect except one thing that is really confusing.
So here we go:
World of Warcraft - Account Authenticator
From: "noreply@blizzard.com" <noreply@blizzard.com> To: [cut]
Greetings!
Recently, the problem of account invasion is getting worse and worse which cause enormous players’equipments and virtual currency stolen. This severely damages the benefits of mass players, also causes our company lose a lot of customers.
Our company has to adopt some measures to safeguard our common benefits in order to strengthen the safety of mass players'accounts, and firmly resist the account to be stolen again.Through our company's research and investigation to xxx customers,we will make the following decisions: we launch a package of updated code strengthen system and dynamic code protection card which can effectively prevent the accounts invaded. We will send this package of code protection system to players free of charge.
Please open this connection: xxx.xxxx.xxx
If your account passes the check successfully, we will send this package of dynamic code protection card to you in the form of e-mail.
In 3 days after you receiving the e-mail, if you don't submit your information, we have right to freeze your account, every player is obligated to protect the safety of the account. You must work together with us to be determined to crack down all the behaviors of destroying games.
If you had already authenticator your account, please disregard this automatic notification.
Regards,
The World of Warcraft Support Team
Blizzard Entertainment
xxx.xxxx.xxx
------------------------
Now, this is pretty good scam attempt right? Red link in that quote is probably leading to some website with bad stuff. That "check" how they call it must be some kind of script or something else that will get you keylogger or other sh*tty thing. Anyway link they wrote is different from real link that leads to that bad website.
Now I still don't have authenticator and I never tried to get one. In fact I don't want it. I play WoW for around 3 years now and I never got hacked. I am careful when it comes to internet security. I believe I am safe.
So anyway, I just wanted to post that thing, and get your opinions.
Oh one thing. I took a break from WoW around one month ago and I downloaded trial version few days ago to play a bit. Funny thing is that this mail I got was sent to my trial account mail. I didn't get any information on my true wow mail. Weird right?
BTW: did Blizzard ever stated that authenticator is required for WoW? AFAIK it was always optional security tool...
Edit: links deleted
Edited, Jun 4th 2010 10:36am by Drayna
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- General Discussion
- Yet another "email from Blizzard" hack attempt?
Yet another "email from Blizzard" hack attempt?Follow
Based on your writing I'm going to assume English isn't your native language. English, especially "American" English, is probably one of the hardest languages to learn. While it's a nightmare for people learning the language, it helps those of us who were raised speaking it to spot things like this almost immediately.
It's a scam. The first sentence of the copy/pasted email gives it away and I didn't even bother reading the rest. Remove the link from your post and don't follow it.
It's a scam. The first sentence of the copy/pasted email gives it away and I didn't even bother reading the rest. Remove the link from your post and don't follow it.
Raolan wrote:
English, especially "American" English, is probably one of the hardest languages to learn.
How on earth did you figure that out? I can think of a lot of other languages that seem way harder to master.
That being said, this is a scam like all other similar e-mails.
Wortschmied wrote:
suicidal-tactic that would make a lemming proud
Even for a non english speaker the incorrect usage of the language should be easy enough to spot.
My advice for anyone receiving any emails like that is to either ignore them or report them to an official site and any in-game should be reported immediately to a GM as they can perhaps trace them and stop it happening .
My advice for anyone receiving any emails like that is to either ignore them or report them to an official site and any in-game should be reported immediately to a GM as they can perhaps trace them and stop it happening .
Quote:
I can think of a lot of other languages that seem way harder to master.
American English is such an SOB because it's cannibalized so many words from other languages, never mind the variety of dialects.
My favorite example -
"It's impossible for two positives to equal a negative."
"Yeah, right."
Quote:
How on earth did you figure that out?
First sentence -
Quote:
Recently, the problem of account invasion is getting worse and worse which cause enormous players’equipments and virtual currency stolen.
When's the last time you've seen Blizz use the term "virtual currency?"
"Enormous players' equipments" - so Tauren are being robbed?
Quote:
This severely damages the benefits of mass players,
The benefits of "mass players" - you mean MMOs?
Quote:
also causes our company lose a lot of customers.
Even a Brit or Canadian should be able to see the the English breakdown by this point, also, no company publicly admits something is causing them to lose customers.
Drayna wrote:
I believe I am safe.
I've heard this somewhere before...
I've gotten so used to deleting any email from "Blizzard" that I had serious reservations about my beta invite to SC2. I ended up reading the email on another computer using the cable company's webmail portal. I was just to scared to open it on the computer I play on.
"Engrish" is always a dead giveaway. I've noticed a lot of these kind of emails lately, and I've been getting one in my inbox almost every day for the last 8 to 10 days.
The one that really makes me laugh is where they ask you to visit the fake Blizzard site to download a bit of software from them which will "help with your security."
The one that really makes me laugh is where they ask you to visit the fake Blizzard site to download a bit of software from them which will "help with your security."
Tavarde wrote:
I don't post here to be disagreed with... Oh, and I'll be deleting the OP, I don't need to hear from any more of you. Because you're all 100% wrong anyway.
Our guild recently started a new webpage on a commonly used 'free' guild-hosting webpage. I registered using a novel email account. Since then, that email (which has not been used for any other purpose) has received 3 emails from 'Blizzard' of which one is identical to the OP's all reporting serious flaws with my account security.
4 posts
I thought I was safe as well. I never open questionable links. Having said that, somehow I had an authenticator placed on my account a couple weeks ago. I guess I must have done something to give access to my account and password but I don't know what. I now have an authenticator of my own and so does my wife. I only costs $6.50 and it only takes a couple seconds more to log in. I wish I had purchased it long ago in hindsight. I just thought I was safe. I am now suggesting to anyone who will listen to get one.
rusttle wrote:
Even a Brit or Canadian should be able to see the the English breakdown by this point, also, no company publicly admits something is causing them to lose customers.
This made me laugh. British English is harder to learn than American English. I know, I've done both, and started fairly late, too. Canadian English is, from what I understand, not much different from standard American English.
That being said, there are grammatical mistakes in this e-mail that any native speaker and in fact anyone who's anywhere near fluent in English should be able to spot, and even if you argue that the choice of words might be some strange dialect, Blizzard would not use strange dialects and we've been globalised and exposed to each other for a long enough time to notice if something is actual English (whatever kind) or not.
Support Ahmadiyya
Meh, perhaps English is a hard language to master, given that I've been working on mine since fifth grade, but I believe the hardest language to learn is currently some Chinese dialect, with Danish somewhere up there on the list. Though, I'm guessing that is learning how to both speak and write it, since Danish (according to Kali) is fairly easy to learn to write, but unless you're used to soft D's, it'll break your jaw, if you try to speak it.
Edited, Jun 4th 2010 5:07pm by Mazra
Edited, Jun 4th 2010 5:07pm by Mazra
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
Quote:
Recently, the problem of account invasion is getting worse and worse which cause
Only needed that much to be sure.
Problem is singular so cause should actually be causes. <.<
Moon Guard (Alliance) & Wyrmrest Accord (Both Factions)
A Blizzard letter would not contain the phrase 'getting worse and worse' either.
At least where I'm from, that phrase is only used in spoken language whereas written language would simply be 'getting worse'.
Edited, Jun 4th 2010 6:25pm by Mazra
At least where I'm from, that phrase is only used in spoken language whereas written language would simply be 'getting worse'.
Edited, Jun 4th 2010 6:25pm by Mazra
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
My email provider's filtering is pretty good at keeping me from seeing these phishing spams in my inbox. The only place I regularly see them is here in this forum. 
Furlis - 80 Gnome Rogue - Terokkar
Trylofer wrote:
I'm still waiting for the "head slap over the internet" thingie to be developed. On that day, there will be lag, and lots of it.
The most difficult language to master is the one that is most different from your native language. Some languages do have quirks: English does take on a lot of different words from different sources, and does not change them to make sense in terms of regular English words. This makes vocabulary and pronunciation hard. Grammar is fairly easy in English in that there aren't a lot of rules, but this is made up for having a lot of exceptions to those rules.
Russian grammar is very complex and has a lot of rules. It doesn't have as many pure exceptions, but it has a lot of rules that essentially create groups of exceptions. So, Russian grammar is hard in a completely different way than English grammar. That doesn't mean one is harder than the other. Russian pronunciation can be difficult, but mostly to people whose native languages don't include some of the sounds in Russian or that have few consonants/consonant clusters. A Japanese person learning Russian would probably have a very hard time with the pronunciation.
As for the phishing e-mail, yeah, I'd avoid anything that offers something that seems too good to be true or threatening something. Fear and greed are the two main ploys they use to get your information. If I got an e-mail threatening suspension, I'd probably call Blizzard on the phone to check.
Russian grammar is very complex and has a lot of rules. It doesn't have as many pure exceptions, but it has a lot of rules that essentially create groups of exceptions. So, Russian grammar is hard in a completely different way than English grammar. That doesn't mean one is harder than the other. Russian pronunciation can be difficult, but mostly to people whose native languages don't include some of the sounds in Russian or that have few consonants/consonant clusters. A Japanese person learning Russian would probably have a very hard time with the pronunciation.
As for the phishing e-mail, yeah, I'd avoid anything that offers something that seems too good to be true or threatening something. Fear and greed are the two main ploys they use to get your information. If I got an e-mail threatening suspension, I'd probably call Blizzard on the phone to check.
Lysiem: Undead Shadow Priest who loves soloing and healing.
Yskra: Rogue-in-training.
Verynie and Qenara: Druids.
Yskra: Rogue-in-training.
Verynie and Qenara: Druids.
I'd suggest switching to Gmail. I'm very very open about my public email address (jays83gsl@gmail.com) as a personal experiment to see how long it takes for the phishing emails to start coming in.
I'm YET to get one, myself, because Gmail (I assume) is so damn good about filtering SPAM out.
To confirm again, though, the email in question is a very poor attempt at phishing.
I'm YET to get one, myself, because Gmail (I assume) is so damn good about filtering SPAM out.
To confirm again, though, the email in question is a very poor attempt at phishing.
Cicorest, Mage||Das Führer, DK||Nalgas, Rogue
^Cenarian Circle^
1983 Mazda RX7 GSL - Rexie - My Garage
"Saying that a druid can go resto and do well in arena and saying that a hunter can't do the same doesn't make any sense whatsoever." - Wait
^Cenarian Circle^
1983 Mazda RX7 GSL - Rexie - My Garage
"Saying that a druid can go resto and do well in arena and saying that a hunter can't do the same doesn't make any sense whatsoever." - Wait
I'm using Hotmail and using that e-mail address for everything and I never even have anything in my spam/junk folder at all.
About languages - I think comparing how difficult grammar is makes sense. It certainly has to do with what other languages you know, for example Dutch syntax is supposedly hard but if you know German and English it's very manageable.
Apart from that, my personal experience with languages not at all related to my own has been that it varies greatly. Hebrew grammar is really easy, easier than English even if you are able to adapt to the completely different mindset associated with it. Mandarin Chinese and Japanese grammar are alright, too. Finnish grammar is a nightmare for me. I've tried, I've been really motivated about it, I've spent time with Embassy employees, it doesn't work.
Greek, which is theoretically relatively similar to Indo-European languages, is incomprehensible to me, too, which it shouldn't be.
On the other hand, my brother struggles with English but is fluent in Greek and conversational in a couple of languages relatively closely related to Finnish, so I think it's just a matter of how close a language is to your own way of structuring your thoughts.
Ultimately, with enough time, exposure, and a fair bit of curiosity, I'm pretty sure any grammar can be learned (I believe in things like universal grammar and genetic predisposition to acquire language). Pronunciation is a different thing and I'm still working on getting rid of the last traces of an accent in English. Through my recent adventures I've noticed that I've been getting better at the difficult phonemes in Dutch, too, including ones I hadn't been able to pronounce at all, so I think it's doable, but again that's a very personal thing as I know my brother's Greek is better than my English but his accent is much more noticeable.
And yeah, I tend to use my brother for comparison on these matters.
Edited, Jun 5th 2010 1:03am by Kalivha
About languages - I think comparing how difficult grammar is makes sense. It certainly has to do with what other languages you know, for example Dutch syntax is supposedly hard but if you know German and English it's very manageable.
Apart from that, my personal experience with languages not at all related to my own has been that it varies greatly. Hebrew grammar is really easy, easier than English even if you are able to adapt to the completely different mindset associated with it. Mandarin Chinese and Japanese grammar are alright, too. Finnish grammar is a nightmare for me. I've tried, I've been really motivated about it, I've spent time with Embassy employees, it doesn't work.
Greek, which is theoretically relatively similar to Indo-European languages, is incomprehensible to me, too, which it shouldn't be.
On the other hand, my brother struggles with English but is fluent in Greek and conversational in a couple of languages relatively closely related to Finnish, so I think it's just a matter of how close a language is to your own way of structuring your thoughts.
Ultimately, with enough time, exposure, and a fair bit of curiosity, I'm pretty sure any grammar can be learned (I believe in things like universal grammar and genetic predisposition to acquire language). Pronunciation is a different thing and I'm still working on getting rid of the last traces of an accent in English. Through my recent adventures I've noticed that I've been getting better at the difficult phonemes in Dutch, too, including ones I hadn't been able to pronounce at all, so I think it's doable, but again that's a very personal thing as I know my brother's Greek is better than my English but his accent is much more noticeable.
And yeah, I tend to use my brother for comparison on these matters.
Edited, Jun 5th 2010 1:03am by Kalivha
Support Ahmadiyya
Nope, English is not my native language. In that mail I was asked to go to <website1> but in fact link was to <website2>. That was enough for me to treat this like a scam attempt.
So today I got another scam email. This one was a lot worse that previous one, it was Cataclysm beta invite (lol!). I understand I can get random scam emails but I am curious why I got them on this email address and not the other one.
I downloaded WoW trial version some time ago, and I used that on <my.wowtrial.email.address>. My other <real.wow.email.address> is free from scam emails. It's like I used WoW trial client and now I get spam on <my.wowtrial.email.address>.
Oh well, this topic is pointless, I should write in existing thread rather than make new one. Thanks for all replies guys and girls.
So today I got another scam email. This one was a lot worse that previous one, it was Cataclysm beta invite (lol!). I understand I can get random scam emails but I am curious why I got them on this email address and not the other one.
I downloaded WoW trial version some time ago, and I used that on <my.wowtrial.email.address>. My other <real.wow.email.address> is free from scam emails. It's like I used WoW trial client and now I get spam on <my.wowtrial.email.address>.
Oh well, this topic is pointless, I should write in existing thread rather than make new one. Thanks for all replies guys and girls.
Somewhere along the lines your email address was spotted so now you're getting emails. I played for 2 years and never received an email. In the middle of an 8 month break where I never even visited a WoW related site, I started getting them.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure legitimate Blizzard emails don't ask you to sign in to a linked website, so any email that does ask you to do this will be a hack attempt.
Blizzard knows you can log in to the game and to its website, simply because you play the game.
Blizzard knows you can log in to the game and to its website, simply because you play the game.
Leodis wrote:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure legitimate Blizzard emails don't ask you to sign in to a linked website, so any email that does ask you to do this will be a hack attempt.
Except for the Battle.net merge where they asked you to click a link and sign in with both username and password.
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
Recent Visitors: 0
All times are in CDT
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- General Discussion
- Yet another "email from Blizzard" hack attempt?
© 2018 ZAM Network LLC