WoW players are frequent targets of scammers intent on stealing World of Warcraft login credentials. And because Blizzard (developers of WoW and several other popular online games) has merged WoW logins with Battlenet credentials, a compromise of your WoW account now means a compromise of all your Battlenet games. Following are common tricks the scammers use.
Phishing scams try to trick users into voluntary providing sensitive information. In the case of WoW phishing, the goal of the scammers is to get you to send them your username and password for World of Warcraft (and thus your Battlenet login). Here's an
example of a WoW phishing scam, sent in by an observant and not-to-be-tricked reader.
Real world money can be made off virtual in-game possessions. Modern malware is all about making money for criminals, so it stands to reason that gamers would be a target. Keylogging trojans are commonly used, sitting silently on your system and siphoning your World of Warcraft and other online game usernames and passwords.
Blizzard, makers of the very popular World of Warcraft series of MMORPG, has been aggressively warning players to the risks of keyloggers and other trojans that can lead to compromise of their online gaming credentials. But for many of the impacted players, the cause isn't due to keyloggers, but rather boils down to good old fashioned trickery, aka Social Engineering.
Trojans used to create botnets have long been implicated in spam and credit card fraud rings. But online games, particulary MMORPGs (Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Games), are also a frequent target. Keylogging Trojans can be used to capture the login credentials for popular games and those accounts exploited for profit. Commonly, the attackers login to the stolen accounts and steal the in-game currency, rare items, and coveted equips, later auctioning them on IRC or eBay for real world money.
In-game messages from folks masquerading as GMs can often trip up new users. One of the most common are the holiday-themed in-game messages promising free gifts or rewards. The messages can come from official sounding names, like Blizz, making it harder for new gamers to tell the difference. One of the most frequent and presumably successful scams involves Christmas Gifts from Blizzard.
