Users Report Being Hacked in Diablo III, Authenticators be Damned

[Shawn Zipay]

A number of threads (one, two, three) and posts on the official Diablo III forums have been cropping up lately from users who report that their accounts have been hacked and all of their items removed. Yes, even those users who allegedly use a Blizzard Authenticator have reported such cases of hacking taking place.

Having been ignored long enough, fans of the game finally started to get some responses from Blizzard via the forums that show that perhaps there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

“Hey guys, we are very aware of these reports and are taking them very seriously. Please keep an eye on the General Discussion forums as Community members will be posting something soon. If you have been hacked, please contact Customer Service as soon as you can. In addition, using an Authenticator can help secure your account even more.”

Coicidently, a number of these reports went hand in hand with the European Diablo III servers goind down on Sunday for roughly four hours. It is specualted that these servers were taken down after an SQL injection attack though nothing has been confirmed.

According to Eurogamer, session identification may be the main method that hackers are gaining control over your account.

One theory suggested by players on the Battle.net forum revolves around hijacking session identifiers, which would allow hackers to take over accounts without alerting Blizzard's authentication server. Again, this remains unconfirmed.

While it may not do too much, it is strongly advised that you change your Battle.net password and attach an authenticator to your account. If you do not want a separate piece of hardware for an authenticator, Blizzard offers up Authenticator apps for both Android and iOS.

Personally, after having my WoW account hacked into a couple of years back, it can be a very frustrating experience for anyone involved. Hopefully this issue gets resolved prior to my copy of Diablo III arriving later this week.

[SgtMattBaker]

I'm actually not surprised. This is seriously the worst DRM I've seen.

[Shawn Zipay]

Re: Users Report Being Hacked in Diablo III, Authenticators be Damned

It's part DRM, part way for Blizzard to control people exploiting the system like they did in Diablo II (duping items, etc.). This is especially worth it for them given the auction house system in the game and the real money auction house coming soon to the game.

[SgtMattBaker]

Re: Users Report Being Hacked in Diablo III, Authenticators be Damned

I agree, but what if the solution to avoid this was ... simpler? Like only being able to sell stuff that was acquired when the game was played online.
I'm no programmer, but that shouldn't be a problem for someone who develops games.

[Thortok2000]

The guy who had an authenticator didn't add it until after the compromise (according to Blizzard). So this is probably still a case of a ton of people failing at account security. It could also be the WoW goldsellers fighting back. They could've had the accounts and passwords from however they get them for WoW players and then sat on 'em until Diablo 3 was out for a week or so, and then pounced on them all at once. In WoW, items bind to your character so the most you can really take is gold. In Diablo 3 you can take everything.