New Password Reset Scam Targets World of Warcraft Accounts

It seems that nefarious entities are attempting to use the security issues linked to Gawker Media accounts, including those of known gaming blog Kotaku, to get their hands on account information for the very popular MMO World of Warcraft via the oldest trick in the book, an e-mail which prompts gamers to hand over their information.

The fake e-mail message begins with “Hello, This is an automated notification regarding your Battle.net account. Some or all of your contact information was recently modified through the Account Management website.”

It then reads, “Account security is solely the responsibility of the accountholder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives will typically lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.”

More information about this particular scam attempt and ways to protect a World of Warcraft account can be found in this official Blizzard thread.

The problem might be compounded by the fact that Blizzard is actually sending out an e-mail linked to the Gawker Media issues, although one which sounds very different.

The official e-mail from Blizzard has the subject line “Subject: Account Security Alert: Password Reset”.

The first paragraph reads “We've recently been informed that several Gawker Media websites have been compromised. These websites include Gawker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, Jezebel, io9, Jalopnik, Deadspin, and Fleshbot. To help minimize the effects of this compromise and help keep your Battle.net account safe and secure, we've reset your account password. To complete the password reset, please log into Battle.net Account Management (https://us.battle.net/account/management) and follow the provided instructions.”

Full information on the Gawker Media security breach can be found on Lifehacker.

World of Warcraft remains the most popular subscription based MMO in the world and developer Blizzard has just released the Cataclysm expansion for the video game, introducing new races, new content and raising the level cap.