Blizzard has been hacked, change your passwords now

by Stephen Heller Featured 11 Comments 34 Votes 958 Views 10/08/2012 Back to News

Blizzard is under attack! Their online gaming service Battle.net has been breached, with e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords being compromised. The hackers also accessed secret questions and Authenticator information, but Blizzard feels that not enough information was stolen to access accounts. They also claim that there is no evidence suggesting that real names, addresses or credit card numbers were accessed.

This week, our security team found an unauthorised and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard," said an official statement. "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."

You should probably go ahead and change your password.....now.

By Stephen Heller

Link to us http://pc.mmgn.com/News/blizzard-has-been-hacked-change-your-pas
Tags: battlenet been blizzard gaming hacked has news
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Blizzard has been hacked, change your passwords now Comments

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Official Blizzard statement:

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.
You've got to be kidding me. Blizzard? How the hell did hackers gain access to their databases? You'd expect them to have the strongest encryption in the entire gaming industry (barring stuff like Steam, XBL, PSN)! [WTF]

abujaffer said: You've got to be kidding me. Blizzard? How the hell did hackers gain access to their databases? You'd expect them to have the strongest encryption in the entire gaming industry (barring stuff like Steam, XBL, PSN)!



Um.
Yeah.
That's the thing.
When you're a really big company, you're a target. It's impossible to plug all the holes in your security thanks to how computers work. It was probably just some small oversight, which is sometimes all that it takes.
*Flashbacks of SONY*

[MOG]
Thank God I didn't have credit card or authenticator details on there. Just downloaded the authenticator app and registered it, so hopefully I'm good if the hackers did get enough info. :P

Now fingers crossed that Blizzard give us free stuff to apologize like Sony did. [MOG]
yes free stuff would be good
and it was only a couple of days ago someone was telling me that Blizzard had the best security and that other companies should look to them to see how its done.
Well at least they told us the situation right away, unlike Sony who tried to hide the severity and left consumers in the dark -_-
i didnt think this was real. when you log into battle net, in the bottom right corner its got trust e certified privacy.

but from that blizzard statement if you click the link supplied to the login page it has ESRB privacy certified and when you click it, it takes you to truste which is suspicious to me. also ive received scam emails, confirmed by blizzard to be scam emails which have a login link that have ESRB privacy certified on it.
these people could earn big money showing big companies like Blizzard where the holes in the security are, rather than abusing them.. [MOG]

Heller said: Well at least they told us the situation right away, unlike Sony who tried to hide the severity and left consumers in the dark



I was hacked a week before this news broke if it helps. Blizzard contacted me telling me someone was using my account, causing allsorts of trouble and they temperarly banned me. My credit card info WAS breached cause as soon as this happened someone started spending money from my bank so i had to change my card details and the bank refunded me after an investigation.

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