A Brief Word On Scammers And Account Security

Hey there!

So I was on Facebook this evening (it's virtually always running in the background of whatever else I'm doing), and I came across an ad in the corner.

Looks legit.

There's no doubt about it, this is a scam.  It would be beyond silly for Blizzard to introduce a panda mount with pandaren on the way.  Not to mention the incessant jokes in [2.Trade] they'd open themselves up to about pandas riding pandas.  "Yo dawg, we heard you like pandas..."  And don't even get me started on the dirty connotations.  Nutshell summary, they ain't doing it.

Why do I bring it up if it's so obvious?  See that number there?  "449 people like this"?  I'm assuming "liking" the page is one of the steps to "get your free mount."  Steps which also include giving out your account information.  That number was around 200 a couple of days ago...ouch, man.  That means in just a couple of days, around 200 people poked a bunch of holes into the security of their accounts.

This is hardly a new phenomenon.  I once had a coworker who came up to me during the Wrath days to brag about the "special mount" he was going to get.  He was an Azerothian rookie, and I had a midsized stable of mounts, so he was pretty proud of that.  If you've been paying attention, you know where this is going.  YEAH, WHOOPS.  This is one of the few times I've literally facepalmed, and I did it right out in the store.  I explained what he had done, and his face drooped in horror.  This was before authenticators, and his account was gone by the time he got home that day.

The Point
With the Mists of Pandaria beta now live and sending out invites in batches of 100,000, there are people frantically checking their e-mail for any peep out of Blizzard.  This is a time when scammers can absolutely THRIVE in the field of account theft.  If you get ANY notifications from Blizzard, let me stress the following:

DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS IN YOUR E-MAIL.  IF YOU HAVE NEWS FROM BLIZZARD, GO TO BATTLE.NET (GO THERE YOURSELF, DON'T FOLLOW A LINK) AND GO THROUGH THE PROCESS THERE.  ALSO NOTE THAT A BLIZZARD REPRESENTATIVE WILL NEVER EVER ASK FOR YOUR ACCOUNT INFORMATION, ESPECIALLY NOT TO DOLE OUT A STUPID FREE MOUNT.


It's times like these when those [redacted - profane] can make some killer cash by coaxing your private information out of you. Don't let them win - play it close to the chest, and don't type in your information anywhere, except for Blizzard URLs that you've accessed manually.

We're all in this together. Play it safe, mates.
- Stonepalm -