As many people are aware, there seems to be a rash of account theft running through the gaming world. People are reporting guild banks being cleaned out and characters turning up for sale in various places. It's a bit scary.

In January and February there were reports of a nasty worm virus, traced back to China, which was lurking in digital picture frames and other portable devices. These were particularly insidious, being able to disable a variety of protection and firewall software, hide on your computer, distribute themselves, and cover their own tracks. At least one version seemed to be targeting MMO gaming passwords.

Yeah, makes you want to go and change your password, doesn't it.

Thursday CNN.com and Yahoo! News both reported password hacking epidemics, both apparently using some form of keylogger to capture account information. CNN reports on further viruses preinstalled in a variety of portable devices, and Yahoo! on infected websites.

What's a poor gamer to do? The best thing you can do is practice smart passwording:

• Don't use the same password for everything
• Don't use anything even vaguely obvious, like your mother's maiden name
• Incorporate letters and numbers and random capitalization
• Change your password frequently.
• And never, ever, ever tell your account information to anyone.

SOE also offers good tips for keeping your account safe.



Sources:
Techshout Jan 25, 2008
Techshout Feb 19, 2008
Webware.com
Yahoo! News
CNN.com
bytecrime.org